1st Day of School

It is the first day of school and I hope that everyone is not too sleepy. I have a few interesting sites for you to check out. Don't forget to take a look at my New Teacher Tech Survival Post. You do not have to be a new teacher to find this post valuable. Take a look and see what you might be able to use in your classroom.

Blogging Rubric

More and more teachers are starting to have their students blog for class and that is a great thing. I found this great rubric that teaches can use with students to help guide their blogging. It's a very simple rubric that can be altered for an individual teacher's need. This rubric does not have to be used for grading. It can be used as a guide for students as they get used to the blogging format. Check out this rubric to see if you can use it in your class.

Project PLN

Here is a project I have been working on this summer with a friend. Project PLN is a monthly magazine dedicated to education. Every month, Kelly Tenkely and I will select a handful of blog posts, videos, images, etc on a selected topic and publish in this online magazine format. Our first issue is on PLNs and the impact they can have on education. Please check this out and pass it along. We will have new topics every month and are excited to see what other people have to share. Thanks for reading!






Flip Cam Uses Across The Curriculum

This summer, I won a Flip Cam from @SpecialK12 while at the ISTE Conference in Denver. I was really excited about getting a Flip Cam because there are so many different things I can use it for in my English classes. This post shows different possible uses for Flip Cams in Science, English, Social Studies, Math and Foreign Language. Reasonably priced at $150 for the standard definition Flip Cam and $200 for the HD version, the Flip Cam is a smart investment for teachers looking to add extra dimensions to their lessons. Flip Cams are very easy to use and are ready out of the box. Take a look at the potential uses of the Flip Cam in this post and see if a Flip Cam would be right for your classroom.

Save The Words!

Thanks to Kelly Tenkely and her site iLearnTechnology for pointing this site out to me. Save The Words is a very cool site that has collected "endangered" words. The main page is filled with words scattered all over the page. As you scroll over the words, they scream out to you to "pick me". If you find a word that is near and dear to your heart, you can "adopt-a-word". By adopting a word, you are promising to use your new word in an effort to keep it alive for others to enjoy. The site offers a word of the day that could be a great way to introduce new words to your students. As the English language continues to evolve, it is nice to see a site dedicated to saving as many words as possible. Without sites like this, how would we ever know which of our math teachers are masters of logarithmotechny? Check out this fun site to see how you might be able to use it in your class.

Here a couple of videos worth watching as the school year starts. Sometimes we dive right into our lesson plans because know what we want to do. Sometimes, we should take a minute to get to know our students and maybe adjust our lessons down the line. Take a look at these two videos and see if you take into consideration the type of learners in the seats instead of the type of teacher you are.

Lastly, I want to leave you with a couple of other videos to get you through the first day. Enjoy.

What do you make?

We might feel this way after the first day of school, bit it only gets better from here.I hope everyone had a great first day and I know each and every one of you is going to have an amazing year.

- Give it a try!