This week I've been working with our librarian and our Grade 3 teachers to prepare our students for a skype call with the poet Kenn Nesbitt on Friday. The students are working on the How We Express Ourselves unit of inqury which is focusing on poetry and song.
I've collated the best apps for recording Skype in this list. While some of the applications are free, most of them require you to shell out a few bucks. The list is split into separate sections for Windows and Mac.
Do you need a new way for your students to express themselves or show what they know? Google Search Stories Video Creator may be the way. Students just type up to seven search terms and search types into a field. Then they choose the music and publish. The results are embeddable and linkable.
Learning typing is the focus of these keyboarding games. Learning keyboarding skills is vital for today's learners and tomorrow's earners. These free typing games are a great way to build typing skills. Keyboarding games teach important skills through a variety of online typing lessons and typing games..... oh yeah, they're fun!
"Social media is growing at explosive rates. Just take a glance at Gary's Social Media Count which includes recent statistics from January 2011. Be certain to click on the 'social', 'mobile', 'games', and 'heritage' buttons at the top of the page to get the full impact."
Beauty and Darkness: Cambodia in Modern History
The Beauty and Darkness project provides information on the recent history of Cambodia, particulary the Khmer Rouge period. This includes materials pertaining to Cambodia, as well as information about Cambodian refugees and immigrants abroad. articles are categorized within the menus at the top of each page. The following links might be useful starting points:
"The Internet is wonderful for entertainment and interesting content. However, for kids, that entertaining content isn't always appropriate. It's difficult for parents to allow their kids to use YouTube, because it's very hard to filter out the bad content from the good.
Luckily, many of the children's sites across the Internet publish their own version of YouTube, dedicated exclusively for kids and no one else. "
Are you interested in using games in your classroom but just cant find ones that match your curriculum? Have you tried to create video or boArd games for your classroom only to be overwhelmed by the amount of time and effort required just to produce them? If you answered yes to these questions, this web site is for you. This site contains downloadable games, game templates, and utilities that teachers and trainers can use to enhance any lesson.
KIT stands for "Kids Into Thinking". These math KITs are a great way for children to practice basic operations at school and/or home using a different game (in a kit) each week. Learn to create and introduce KITs and download free multiplication KITs below.
As well as assessing students' understanding at any given time, you will also need to record their progress over time. Here are five suggested ways of doing this.
It is not enough to teach students how to understand information and communications technology. At some point you are going to have to assess their knowledge and understanding.
And therin lies the rub!!
As a teacher, I enjoy looking for new ways to engage students. Some methods employed may be novel; I know their effectiveness will wear off over time. Other methods are structured around solid principles of learning and have lasting value. Striking a balance amongst both novel and lasting methods helps establish an evolving, engaging and enriched classroom experience.
What is cool about webdoc is that you can so easily embed or drag and drop all sorts of content / media right onto the page and it is also designed for discussion / conversation that can have media included as well.
Here are some ways I can envision using it in education:
Students create passion profiles.
Students create "What's Your Genius" profiles of one another and use the discussion to build upon it.
Forget textbooks. Create webdocs.
Each teacher can have Webdoc that outlines who she is.
Classes can make webdocs to celebrate the completion of a unit of study.
Schools can use webdocs to organize events. Imagine this webdoc from @jmarkeyAP was a school event.
Webdocs as a student learning portfolio.