Educators today have a much greater challenge to keep students engaged in the learning experience when they are teaching a generation of multi-taskers with shorter attention spans, and less ability to focus on one activity at a time. Ipods, texting, cell phones, YouTube and digital cameras are just a few of the technologies most students use daily. (more…)
February 22, 2010
Discover the 21st Century Classroom through the Apple Learning Interchange
Site of the Week
(http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/)
The Lesson Plan Library by Discovery Education has hundreds of lesson plans for grades K-12 over a wide variety of topics. Each lesson plan contains objectives, materials, discussion questions, procedures, evaluation, links, and standards. All lesson plans are free. Find new creative lesson plans for your classroom.
February 15, 2010
Second Grade Teachers Successfully Improve Math Scores Using Online Games
Mrs. Smeltz, a second grade teacher at Bonfield Elementary school, was unhappy with the quiz scores her students were receiving in math. Students had been working on addition facts for several weeks and were being given quizzes three out of every four days. Each student was to complete 30 addition problems in 90 seconds with the goal of each student receiving 80 percent or higher. (more…)
Discussion: 4Teachers.org Accepts Google Ads
In recent months, the 4Teachers.org site and online tools and resources such as QuizStar, TrackStar, and RubiStar have begun to feature Google Advertising. As many of you know, 4Teachers.org was funded by a grant provided by the U.S. Department of Education. It began as an online webzine in 1995 and has grown into a site that is visited by more than 3 million educators each month and has more than 1000 resources to help integrate technology into the classroom in effective ways. (more…)
Site of the Week
Kidsnewsroom.org (http://kidsnewsroom.org)
Create your own school Web site, submit articles, take weekly quizzes, play online games, and more at Kidsnewsroom.org. There are sample standardized tests, articles about history, science, math, geography, language arts, and more.
February 7, 2010
Save hours of browsing using RSS
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a great way to gather the updates from all of your favorite Web sites in one place. First you download a free RSS Reader such as Google Reader. An RSS Reader is software that allows you to create a Web page that features all of the articles and posts from the blogs and news sites you have subscribed to, saving you hours of browsing time. Once you’ve downloaded your software, go to your favorite blogs and news sites, click the RSS icon and subscribe. (more…)
What’s a Plurk?
… uncovering the meanings of Internet terminology
It seems like new Internet terms are being coined everyday: Wiki, Plurk, Moodle, Today’s Meet, Twitter, Jog the Web, Web 2.0. Some of these terms are the titles of specific Web sites, others are tasks you complete at a Web site, and others describe a type of Web site. If you’ve ever heard one of these terms in a conversation and thought to yourself, “What’s a plurk?” You are not alone. This month I decided to explore the meanings of some of these popular Internet terms so that we can all get up to speed. (more…)
Site of the Week
(The Why Files explores the science, math, and technology behind current news. The site features a news story every week, along with interactive science animations and cool science images. There are also teacher activity pages that feature an article, discussion questions, a quiz, and links to national standards. The Why Files was created in 1996 and has archived all of the featured articles to date. This week’s featured articles:
Tracking Traveling Toads
Global Warming: Last decade sets another record!
