Kansas Educators

Curriki is more than your average website; we're a community of educators, learners and committed education experts who are working together to create quality materials that will benefit teachers and students around the world. Curriki is an online environment created to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them. Our name is a play on the combination of 'curriculum' and 'wiki' which is the technology we're using to make education universally accessible. Curriki is built on the XWiki platform, an open source development platform and "Next Generation Wiki" application developed in Java and released the LGPL open source license. Curriki is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Download a summary of Curriki's history and mission: CurrikiBrochureApril2009.pdf.

About Edmodo is a private micro-blogging platform built for use by teachers and students for use in the classroom. The problem with traditional web 2.0 tools in a k-12 classroom environment is concerns over privacy of the students. Edmodo has been built with the privacy of students in mind. Edmodo provides a way for teachers and students to share notes, links, and files. Teachers also have the ability to send, alerts, events, and assignments to students. Edmodo also has a public component built by allowing at the teachers discretion to post any item to a public timeline at the teacher's discretion.

"Welcome to History Tours: Where History, Geography, and Technology Meet"

"The Lesson Study for College Teachers Online Guide takes you through the lesson study process. The guide features descriptions of essential steps, answers to common questions, video clips of college teachers doing lesson study, and opportunities to interact and share work in progress. (You can preview all the steps quickly in about 10 minutes.) We invite you to use this guide to begin (or continue) Lesson Study on your campus. Click on the graphic below to start the guide or click "next." "

"Record everything. By integrating traditional text notes with audio, video, and slides, Pear Note ensures that you never miss a thing. Pear Note records audio and/or video while you take your notes, so later you can find what was being said when you typed something. You can play back an entire recording, or jump straight to the point you need. Watch this short video to get the full picture."

"Ten tried and tested internet tools for teachers Over the past academic year, my students and I have been experimenting with the use of a number of web based applications (often known as Web 2.0 tools). My aim has been to enhance our schemes of work by providing our students with new and exciting learning opportunities."

from the Buhler Schools district.

I really got a kick out of Meet Me At The Corner, mostly because of the kid video reporters. The kid hosts take you on video tours of historic and cultural sites. I'm actually heading down this path with Kid's Eye View bloggers, like Adora Svitak, who posts frequently at the ERT. It really is a joy watching and listening to kids professionally sharing good quality material-using video. Spark a video classroom project or two, of your own, by checking it out at www.meetmeatthecorner.org.

"A Simple Guide To Set Up Your School On Facebook"

"20 Ways to Use Comics In Your Classroom Through Josh Allen's Tech Fridge blog I recently learned about this slideshow created S. Hendy who writes Digital Tools for Teachers. The slideshow, Tap Into the World of Comics, presents a series of comic creation tools followed by twenty suggestions for using comics in your classroom."

"20 Ways to Use Comics In Your Classroom

"Creative Projects to Share- Graphic Novels, Twitter Role Plays, Cold War Facebook, and Prezi!" Amazing project examples from students

"Create Flash Polls and Surveys! With your free account from 99polls you can now create customized surveys and polls for your website, blog and social network profiles. Using 99polls is a powerful and effective way to get instant feedback and increase your site's popularity among Internet users."

"Top 10 Video Search Engines"

"So Much to Read . . . So Little Time! ZAP Reader is a web based speed reading program that will change the way you read on your computer. Current beta testers report reading twice as much in half the time-that's a 300% increase in reading speed, without any loss in comprehension! There is nothing to install, it works with most popular browsers, and it's totally free! Reader - If you have some text that you want to read fast, copy it onto your computer's clipboard, click this link, and follow the instructions to Zap read that text. Settings - By default, Zap Reader allows you to read at 300 words per minute, one word at a time. Use the settings feature to configure Zap Reader with your own preferences. Tools - Zap Reader is designed to be easy to integrate with other programs. Find out about browser bookmarklets, program ad-ins, and other integration tools here. Click the "Play" button below for a quick 2-minute tutorial on how to use Zap Reader. "

I love the idea of leaving kids with one "cool tool" each time they visit me. During my second session with the grade 3-5 students, I modified an idea I found on Chad Lehman's website using Wordle. In a nutshell, Wordle creates a word cloud out of the text your provide. The more frequently a word is used, the bigger it becomes in the cloud. We began our Wordle lesson by modeling the process, and I had kids quickly brainstorm reasons we love Thailand. Yes, the beaches truly are amazing here, but I did cheat a bit when we made this. When one kid said 'beach,' I asked who else liked the beach and then added a bunch more to give them the idea.

Where kids shape he world

"When Teaching the Right Answers Is the Wrong Direction"