vcu651

Britanica vs wikipedia-

High student achievement by incorporating creativity.

Creative way to find, share and store ideas found on web.

Graphic Organizers

This is not a specific tool. This is a great talk about 21st Centiry Education delivered by the Studio School. "Some kids learn by listening; others learn by doing. Geoff Mulgan gives a short introduction to the Studio School, a new kind of school in the UK where small teams of kids learn by working on projects that are, as Mulgan puts it, "for real."'

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Enter the topic you wish to monitor, then click preview to see the type of results you'll receive.

I mentioned in my discussion post the importance of staying on top of what information is floating around out there about VCU for my job. I've found Google Alerts a helpful tool for doing that.

Top learning tools for Learning

Useful tools for secondary teachers are sites that allow for more access to resources, videos,embedding tools, and printables. I enjoy using Edhelper.com which allows for the creation of content-based puzzles and printable worksheets. Unitedstreaming.com is also a website that provides access to SOL based videos and curriculum units. Though these two websites are not free, edhelper allow teachers to create minimal activities for free and unitedstreaming is often purchased by school districts who receive a site license. Last but not least, I recommend Zamzar.com, which allows teachers to embed YouTube or other videos into PowerPoint presentations that may otherwise be blocked by district internet screening tools.

Checklist for Evaluating Web Resources

Center for Social medio tackles some fair use issues with video

Flipping the classroom great idea.

Web tool that turns photos and video clips into video slideshows with added music and graphics.

Online photo management and photo sharing tool.

This article discusses how literacy can be helped through the creativity of poetry. I think it is very interesting because it is not something that is being done in a suburban or private school with lots of funding and most students at the standard level, but in an urban classroom.

Have your students create and print out these free online thinking guides when they are working on a laboratory assignment or collaborative group project. There is a wide array of graphic organizer templates that may be manipulated and used for different disciplines and topics.

Use this web tool to have students manage classroom based projects online.