A website which provides the terminology used in circuits but appropriate for students. This page in particular could become part of a scavenger hunt or WebQuest activity. It has some use as a stand alone resource as well.
These two are great for students struggling with simple circuits and can do a lot of different things, from using a volt and ammeter, like in class, to creating simple to complex circuits.
FREE online. Teach children to read. For adults too! Fast and easy. Learn to read with interactive audio lessons and hundreds of clickable words.
This site offers fun, interactive phonics tutorials with activities are designed to work on specific skills. Students can use this in the classroom or at home.
Week 9: This article deals with integrating technology in the classroom. Although, a lot of what is discussed in the article has been talked about in some of the courses, the on paragraph I like and find helpful is on Using Technology for Feedback and Assessment. It provides a few online tools that could help teachers get quick feedback on a lesson. Teachers could use this to help with using different technology tools to gain feedback from their students.
Within the website "Starfall" for beginning level readers there is an entire letter practice session; it is in the form of an interactive game. All of the letters of the alphabet are presented and students are able to click on one. It then takes the student through an interactive presentation (visuals and sounds) of that letter: it shows the upper and lowercase form of the letter, makes the letter sound, shows and says words that begin with that letter and dictates a sentence to students using many words beginning with the chosen letter.
This would be good for students who are struggling to identify the letters of the alphabet and their sounds; good for repetitive, independent practice as students could use this by themselves on a computer.
On Starfall.com, there is an entire phonics section titled "Learn to Read" that begins with focus on beginning sounds, making words and word families and gradually gets harder as you progress through. It is an interactive making words game where students that are playing can hear a word, see a matching picture, select a letter that begins the word, hear the sound that the selected letter makes and hear the completed word - all in the context of word families. The game is also self correcting - there is a buzzer noise if you select the wrong beginning sound/letter, so students know to choose again.
Within the "Learn to Read" section, there are also books that use the words from the making words activities and videos for students to watch.
This would be a great tool to use for a student to independently practice phonics at a literacy center when they can't be working with the teacher because it is visual, it reads to the student, it is easy to use and follow, and it is self-correcting so that students are practicing correctly.
This blog post by Todd Finley describes what formative assessment is, in particular, what alternative formative assessment (AFA) is and how and why it can be used to advance student learning.
Teachers can begin to plan the use of AFA by using the downloadable guide of 53 ways to use AFA. For 615 colleagues, be sure to evaluate any strategy using Venables' Planning Protocol Rubric!
Questia is a library research tool for students to assist them in writing research papers. Since most students do not have easy access to databases with more reliable sources, Questia provides students with tools to improve their research skills. The site also provides students with tutorials to help them improve their writing and researching. I have begun to implement some resources to help my high schools students improve their research skills, which is an area they often struggle in. This seems to be the most promising tool for achieving that goal.
I am going to check this out. Thanks Jared - I teach research writing and am always looking for ways to help my learners to organise themselves and ways for me to make the process clearer.
This research paper examines a strategy of using concordance lines to assist L2 students in identifying patterns in the written language to help inform a student's overall writing. The research included one control and one experimental group. Each group was taught by the same instructor, given the same amount of time and writing prompts. Students in both groups were given a set of (5) new vocabulary terms. They were each given a writing prompt prior to learning the words, just after learning the words, and a delayed post-test. The only difference between the (2) groups of students was that the control group was permitted to use a dictionary to assist them in understanding the words, and the experimental group was required to engage in a series of condordance learning activities. These activities presented the experimental group with multiple, short statements from real text, which each modeled use of one of the (5) vocab terms. Students engaged in an analysis of how those terms were used. They studied grammatical aspects of the statement directly related to the key term.
Research results indicated that there was significant improvement in the experimental grouping of students in their ability to correctly use each of the (5) new vocabulary terms. Data from the pre, immediate post, and delayed post-writing assessments showed a vast improvement by the students in the experimental group. Those students were able to construct much more well-developed, descriptive statements using the key terms. There was a marked difference in their language control and the level of their writing.
The road trip structure with stops to explore various Web 2.0 tools is an excellent example of a web-based activity design. Although this road trip is an online professional development example, I can see the structure being adapted for K-12 student explorations.
A teacher could use this in his or her classroom to help students brainstorm ideas in the writing process. I have used googledocs to insert a pre-writing template for students to complete prior to some writing assignments which fulfills a similar purpose. The resource could also be useful in helping you keep your agenda or priorities organized especially when working in a group.
This is an amazing classroom management system to promote positive behavior. Each student in the class is given an avatar. Simply click on the student's name and give/take dojo points for the behaviors you've programmed in. All of the data is logged into the site and saved for the duration of the year. Use the class feature daily or weekly to identify classroom strengths and areas for improvement. Individual student reports are also available and serve as a powerful tool for parent conferences and grade level meetings. Teachers can choose to reward students based on their positive behaviors by points or percentage. I have used the site extensively in my classroom (5th grade) and have found it to be the most effective positive behavior strategy I've ever tried.
I LOVE Class Dojo! I start this at the beginning of school with my classes, they love the little avatars that go along with their names and love hearing the chimes when points are given out. During independent work time, I keep my dojo up on my interactive white board as a constant visual reminder of our behavior management system. I also installed the app on my iPhone, which syncs to my board, so I can give points from across the room if I'm pulling a small group at my kidney table. I love it! Works magic!
A great free online tool for tracking student behavior. This site allows teachers to instantly record student behavior and participation in class. It also graphs students weekly behaviors and allows students to set goals. Teachers can link class dojo up to parents' email and cell phones so parents can recieve daily updates on their childs behaviors and choices in school.
I have a few teachers who have used this tool in their own classrooms and absolutely love this technology. In order to stay organized, Class Dojo allows teachers to keep track of students behavior. Then, teachers could have a simple way of tracking data in order to allow for positive incentives. Displaying data for the class shows how behavior is effecting classroom lessons and keeps students accountable for their actions. Behavior reports are also good printouts to bring to parent-teacher conferences.