Colonial Clothes- A Fun Activity

Here is a quick and fun activity to use when studying the Colonial Time Period. Students love seeing how their counterparts dressed, so have them start with the website http://www.williamsburgkids.com/people/index.html where they will learn about the styles of dress and how that differed depending on your station in life. Once they have read the information, they can check their understanding by visiting  http://www.history.org/History/teaching/dayInTheLife/webactivities/dress/dress.cfm and dressing the people.This can be a fun culminating activity for your unit or a unique way to introduce the time period.

Web 2.0 Tool for December

One of my new favorite websites is www.kerpoof.com. It is a great site where students can publish their work, practice their spelling with Spell a Picture (use an icy background to make a polar picture), make and e-mail cards (a quick and fun activity for this time of year), or just create a picture. Teachers can apply for a teacher account so they can create classes and give students a unique username and password. My only concern is, that while it is currently free, the site is now owned by Disney and there is no guarantee that it will remain that way.

Age level:Pk-4

Interesting Information About You Tube

Here is an interesting article about add-on features for Youtube which makes it a little more classroom friendly.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/09/12-useful-youtube-accessories-for.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Web 2.0 Tool of the Month for August

(Web 2.0 are sites that allow users to interact with information rather than simply being passive readers of the information)

www.tagxedo.com

Many of us have used www.wordle.com to create "word clouds" of information. I also like to use Tagxedo. I like the shapes that you can choose from for your cloud and I find it a little easier to use.

Another Conference

I am blogging from another conference put on by A+ Educators. It has been excellent! I am enjoying getting to know more of the teachers and administrators from Elmira who I am working with on the Learning Academies.

We just sat through an excellent presentation on Web 2.0 tools that can be used to help engage students. I have bookmarked the sites here :

Links

Back From ISTE 2011

Erin and I made it back from Philadelphia and had a great time! I am going to try and blog about each session that I attended, but, until then, here is a list of sites that were mentioned in the sessions:
http://www.delicious.com/animalnut69

ISTE In Philadelphia

Hello everyone! I am blogging to you from the ISTE conference in Philadelphia! Right now we are in a session on PBL and the Common Core. This should be a good follow-up to the 3 day training we had last week.
I am also tweeting as the sessions go on. So check back to see what is happening.

Differentiated Instruction-How Technology Can Help

There are many different ways that technology can help with Differentiation within the classroom. Take content for instance. There are websites available that provide the same content at differing levels. One of my favorites is http://bensguide.gpo.gov/. If you are doing research projects on the US government or symbols, you can customize the level of information your students receive. For example, if I wanted 3rd graders to find out information on The Statue of Liberty, I would set up a Word document with hyperlinks that would send struggling readers to the K-2 section while those on grade level or above could go to the 3-5 section. Same questions, just different hyperlinks.

Another free site is http://42explore.com/. On this site, you can select a topic and see different resources and activities that go along with the topic for varying ability levels. Much of the work has been done for you!

Finally, there is the site http://www.readinga-z.com/. This is a subscription site so there is a yearly cost. It has different books on different levels. You can do a search by topic, say Martin Luther King Jr., and books for various levels will display. Again, all students are studying the same topic, just at their own level. There are also books available for projection on the whiteboards, Readers Theater scripts, as well as assessments like electronic running records.

For those of you who have taken my Differentiated Instruction Class: How Technology Can Help, look for Part II coming this Fall!

Jazzing Up Your Lessons

There are some great sites out there with "fun" things you can add to lessons or website. Horton comes to this site courtesy of http://www.redkid.net/generator/sign.php. You can use photos or characters from Peanuts, Dr. Seuss, Scooby Doo and more.

Visit the site http://www.textspace.net/glitter_text to make Glitter headlines to capture your students' attention.

Using Flipcharts to Enhance Lessons- A Couple of Tips

First tip- Use "Drag a Copy" when you want students to use more than one copy of the same picture (ie- making change, pictographs, etc)

Directions: Place the picture you want to use on the flipchart page. Right-click on the picture and choose "Drag a Copy". Now when you left-click or place the pen on the board, you will be able to drag a copy of that picture anywhere on the board.

Second tip- Inserting a Video Into a Flipchart

If you save the video within the flipchart, you can share the flipchart without worrying about the link not working.( Only do this with video clips, not the entire video! ) For directions on how to do this, visit my flipcharts page at www.gstboces.org/iss/hancock/home