April 2009 Blog Posts (144)

Pirates of Somalia

As readers know, I have begun developing core curriculum content that takes advantage of Web 2.0 resources. These types of resources have the potential to be both engaging and edifying. I'm in the process of completing my second unit on "The Great Gatsby." You'll see more information about the first unit that I developed here. Both of these units use Google Earth.

Well, when I was contemplating today's blog post, I thought about the act of Piracy… Continue

Added by Andrew Pass on April 13, 2009 at 3:22pm — No Comments

Taking Root: An Excellent Film for Classroom Discussion

I currently sit on the advisory board for Curriculum in the Classroom sponsored by the PBS entity Independent Lens. I wanted to let everyone know about a great film that will be airing this month on PBS called, Taking Root. The film traces the exploits of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, and her quest to improve the lives of the people in Kenya. The film would be a great fit for both language arts and… Continue

Added by Joe Fatheree on April 13, 2009 at 10:49am — No Comments

Teaching Technique-LEGACY

Teaching Technique - Legacy

BY DEFINITION: Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past

How do you want your students to remember you?

If you are walking in a local mall and one of your former students sees you then runs to give you a hug and a thank you, would that make you happy.

If you overheard one of your students saying “she is the best teacher I ever had”, How would that make you… Continue

Added by William Lambert on April 13, 2009 at 9:48am — No Comments

Spring Break and Spring Testing

Age the age of thirtyone, I decided what I really wanted to be when I grew up was a teacher. I had been involved in coaching for several years (and several sports) and realized that I enjoyed sharing my skills and knowledge with the younger generation more than I enjoyed my job. I come from a family of teachers and administrators so I knew what I was getting into, it wasn't a pipe dream of perfect students and ideal classes. After finishing college and getting that first job 17 years ago, I can… Continue

Added by Bob.Snyder on April 13, 2009 at 8:48am — No Comments

Twitter in the classroom?

A portion of this post is a response to a class discussion, addressing the idea of using social networking tools in a standard classroom setting. My classmate didn't think it was a good idea to incorporate these technologies in the standard learning process. Technology such as Twitter and other social networking technologies used in the classroom can "possibly" disrupt the standard learning process. An… Continue

Added by Don Robinson on April 12, 2009 at 9:02pm — 1 Comment

Parent Resources

Help! My student needs to write a report.

Research at the Library of Congress. Check out the American Memory link.

Use the search tool for report ideas at Thinkfinity

Math

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives…

Continue

Added by Patrick Kutkey on April 11, 2009 at 3:33pm — No Comments

JEM Earth Summit 2009

Well tonight I leave Honolulu to attend the JEM (Joint Environmental Mission) Earth Summit 2009 in Lahaska Pennsylvania. Sheryl Kahue, the 6th grade Social Studies teacher at Kamehameha Schools and I are bringing 6 students. They will be joined by students and teachers from schools in Russia, China, India, Kenya and Australia. The two week program, sponsored by The Buckingham Friends School, "provides a unique opportunity for elementary-aged children to develop patience, cultural understanding… Continue

Added by Lynne H on April 11, 2009 at 12:15pm — No Comments

Are we willing to embrace the moment ?

Are we willing to embrace the moment rather than recoil from it?, Teachers may find opportunities to empower students to learn deeply and continually in ways that we could scarcely have imagined just a decade ago.

Join Ed-Links-Morocco for online tutoring

Added by Khalil Zakari on April 11, 2009 at 11:26am — No Comments

My Goodness, My Wiki

Since it is a holiday weekend for most, I thought I would take a break from eating chocolate and jelly beans...mmmmmm jelly beans and make two videos on how I utilized my wikispace in the classroom.

Here are two videos that I made through the use of JING and screencast.com. These are two great free resources - that allow upgrades to pro accounts - for any classroom.

In my classroom, I found my wikispaces to be a great source of…

Continue

Added by Andrew Marcinek on April 11, 2009 at 10:44am — 2 Comments

Hamlet in Plain English

I thought for my first official post on this site I would entertain my readers and fellow teachers with a new way to look at William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Last spring I decided to turn Shakespeare’s world upside down by utilizing the “common craft” technique to storytelling. If you have not visited Lee LeFever’s website, please do now! Pass GO, collect your $200 and get to Common Craft!!!! Ken Rodoff, our technology coach at Springfield, introduced me to this site and we were both impressed by… Continue

Added by Andrew Marcinek on April 10, 2009 at 9:00pm — 1 Comment

Your chance to learn 2D animations in PowerPoint

Are you producing boring Powerpoint that only show text and picture slide after slide with some transitions in between? Do you want to spice them up by adding custom animations. I am offering a lesson on Edufire in which you will learn how to produce 2D animations on Monday, April 13 at 8 pm Eastern Time. You will also learn how to produce trajectory-type of… Continue

Added by Dominic P. Tremblay on April 10, 2009 at 8:30pm — No Comments

Goomoodleikiog

Perhaps you, like me, have read and considered the power behind Wikis, Blogging, as well as wondered what's all the HYPE about Web 2.0. Or, maybe you have considered all of the many suggestions about what the best tech tools are or wondered if the World is really going Web 2.0. It seems that many discussions on Classroom 2.0 have been lively and provide great ideas on how we, as teachers, can use web 2.0 tools with our students. I had a handle on these topics and have enjoyed my attempts to… Continue

Added by Glen Westbroek on April 10, 2009 at 7:30pm — 5 Comments

O'Connor Supports Gaming in Education

Former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor appears to have it right. She said, ""You're going to have greater success if you teach it in ways that [students] like to use"...According to an eSchool News article, O'Connor commented that typical students spend as much as forty hours a week in front of a screen. Twenty First Century students know how to learn digitally. Therefore, today's teachers have a responsibility… Continue

Added by Andrew Pass on April 10, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

Elementary School Students Helps the EPA highlight the agency’s commitment to protecting human health and the environment

Press Release:

Swan School Student Video PSA Used By EPA To Promote Online Interactive Earth Day Projects

( Port Townsend, WA – April 10, 2009) To promote their Earth Day video and photo projects, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is using a Port Townsend Swan School Adventurers Class student video. The 30 second Public Service Announcement (PSA) encourages individuals to share the ways they enjoy and protect their… Continue

Added by Jack Olmsted on April 10, 2009 at 8:30am — No Comments

As Tiger Woods

As Tiger Woods goes for his fifth green jacket in this weekend's Masters Tournament, mortal golfers wonder what's inside his head that keeps him winning. Well, chances are his brain actually has more gray matter than the average weekend duffer.…

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Added by dencert on April 10, 2009 at 5:34am — No Comments

Police scramble to find the Easter terror factory

A desperate search was under way last night for the terrorist bomb factory from which a suspected al-Qaeda cell planned to launch a devastating attack in Manchester.

Hours after Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer resigned in disgrace, police operations were concentrating on a rundown block of flats east of Liverpool city centre.

The block was cordoned off and large quantities of material were seized for examination. People were evacuated from the area around… Continue

Added by more on April 9, 2009 at 9:26pm — No Comments

Need Help!!!! Send a Newbie to NECC Project

I am a firm believer in the power of my personal learning network (PLN). All of the things I have learned this year have come from educators around the globe who are part of my PLN in various Nings, Twitter, or other networking locations. I recently launched a project to test the power of this global community. The focus of this project is social studies teacher and edublogger, Richard Byrne. If you want to read more about this project, please see… Continue

Added by Beth Still on April 9, 2009 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Coming Soon - Wikified Schools eWorkshops

I am very excited to announce that this summer I will be launching a small collection of Wikified Schools eWorkshops to help educators begin to use wikis in their work. This idea started with local interest from a small group of people with whom I work, and after some planning and brainstorming I have decided to run the workshops completely online (asynchronously) using Moodle. I will be offering three different workshops, two of which will be free and… Continue

Added by Stephanie Sandifer on April 9, 2009 at 2:46pm — No Comments

invitation to schools and students to visit my students' blog

hi myself and two other teachers are participating in a competition that focuses on youth projects

the theme is green revolution and we are transforming a space in our school to a garden with a group of 15 students

we have an edublog and would really welcome comments from students in other schools about what we have done

so far and how we can improve our blog our address is www.slcsyoungleaders.edublogs.org

Added by stace leza on April 9, 2009 at 2:30pm — No Comments

Nueva red para profesores de español

Hola a todos en Classroom 2.0. Les escribo para invitarles a una red que he creado para profesores de español como segunda lengua de todo el mundo.

Por ahora la red no tiene mucha información, porque el objetivo es que los miembros contribuyan su conocimiento, lo mismo que hacemos aquí. He invitado a mis colegas, pero es difícil que la gente participe al principio y por eso he decidido hacer un poco de publicidad y hablarles de mi red.

El objetivo principal es compartir… Continue

Added by Pilar Munday on April 9, 2009 at 1:58pm — No Comments