Another poem a day resource!
National Poetry Month is April and we can thank Poets.org for wonderful materials to help us celebrate. Visit their extraordinary website as a place to begin. Listen to a favorite poet, download lesson plans, find out whether there are any special events scheduled locally, and examine the National Poetry Map.
To me, one of more difficult things about being a reader is explaining why I didn't like a novel without sounding like a) a jerk, b) a passive-aggressive dweeb, or c) a small-minded fool. The rub is thus: You want to be discerning, without sounding douchey. But that's so much easier said than done. What follows is a tip sheet I've developed based on my own reading, and as a connoisseur of book reviews. I hope it'll help.
I am web geek, and not just because I own a Foursquare t-shirt that I bought at a discount after my 1000th check in. The real reason I know I am a web geek is because I LOVE discovering cool web 2.0 tools that can enhance my classroom! I am about to share with you my not so secret sources for teacher Web 2.0 excitment! ...and that's not all! Actually, it is, but I think you will enjoy discovering all of the new tools that these web sources will present. I guarantee that you will find something new that will amaze you as you explore. So get ready to dive into these web 2.0 treasure troves!
Evernote is a great web service and software application that we can use in education. A lot of ink has been shed on this topic and just one click in a search engine is enough to get hundreds of links to guides and tutorials about Evernote. I have been going through so many of these resources and have collected ideas, videos, notes and many more. If you are a loyal reader to my blog ( I am glad most of you are ) you would clearly notice that guides I write here are different in that they are simple. to the point, address teachers and students direct need, and most of all written in an easy and simple language. In this regard, I am working on an ebook that will contain all the guides I have posted here so far but will be available for free only to my subscribers. Without any further ado, let us get back to our guide.
Wow, fantastic resource, I'll be using this a LOT in the coming months: Mashpedia: Mashpedia is a thematic content aggregator that integrates a variety of data from online services and applications like Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Google News, Books, and further contextual information into a single interface, presenting an organized outlook of live content feeds for every topic, thus providing a broad spectrum of data and media that eliminate the user's need to visit each service separately.
This information applies to 2012. I'm not sure if this will be an annual event.
Connected Educator Month is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, and several organizations are sponsoring programs and activities, including AASL and SETDA, the State Educational Technology Directors Association. So what is CEM, anyway? "Online communities and learning networks are helping hundreds of thousands of educators learn, reducing isolation and providing 'just in time' access to knowledge and opportunities for collaboration. However, many educators are not yet participating and others aren't realizing the full benefits. In many cases, schools, districts, and states also are not recognizing and rewarding this essential professional learning. For these reasons, the U.S. Department of Education's Connected Educators initiative has made August 2012 Connected Educator Month. Throughout the month, there will be coordinated opportunities to participate in events and activities in dozens of online locations to develop skills and enhance one's personal learning network." As one ad for the program proclaims, it's "all of August, all for free, all online - shape the future of the profession."
Explore activities in the starter kit at your own pace:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/38904447/starter-kit-final.pdf
Resource! Talk about a terrific primary source!
In the summer of 1865, a former slave by the name of Jourdan Anderson sent a letter to his former master. And 147 years later, the document reads as richly as it must have back then.
Pinterest's inspiration boards have a lot of potential for libraries and other organizations for creating visual displays of resources and services. All of Pinterest's boards and posts can be shared on Facebook and Twitter. Here are some ideas for how you can make the most of this popular social network for your library:
10 ways schools are teaching internet safety Using third-party resources and having students act as investigators are some of the many ways educators are teaching about online safety and responsibility
Here we will meet the writers whose words are presenting nonfiction in a whole new way. Discover books that show how nonfiction writers are some of the best storytellers around