Happy Tech Tuesday for 9/27

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone! I hope the week is going well. I have a couple of things I want to share with you that you might find helpful.


I want to remind everyone that Mike and I have split the district to best help teachers with their technology curriculum needs.

Mike: North, Parcells, Ferry, Mason, Poupard, Kerby, Monteith and Barnes.

Nick: South, Brownell, Pierce, Defer, Maire, Richard, Trombly and Barnes.

Feel free to email us and set a time to meet. We have already been in some buildings helping teachers and it has been great. We look forward to meeting with you helping you integrate technology into your already brilliant lesson plans.

Writing Prompts

I found this on my Google Reader the other day and I love it. This site has over 250 pictures that pose a question for the reader. Here is one example that I love,

Here is another fun one,

I think this would be great for most ages at the start of class. Check it out and see how you could use it.

Draw A Stickman

This is just a fun site that would be great for little kids. It allows you to draw pictures that interact with a preset story. This would be great to use on a Smartboard.

Cell Phones is the Classroom

This is a great article on Edutopia on the use of Cell Phones in the classroom. The article has some links to sites that are designed to help teachers utilize the cellphones the students have in class. If you have been thinking of ways to use the phones in your classroom, here is the perfect article for you.

I hope you find these sites helpful. If you have something you would love to share with the rest of the district, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

Give it a try!

Nick Provenzano

Learning Word Order on the SmartBoard

Here is a nice little site I came across that will allow teachers to use their Smartboards in class with the elementary Students. Click here to be taken to a fun site that allows students to manipulate the words on the screen and place them in the correct order to form a coherent sentence. The cool part is that the computer will say the word that is touched by the students. Once all of the words are in place. just touch each word in order and it will read the sentence to you.

This site has great programs that will work wonders on the SmartBoard. Under Social Studies, there are some games that require students to touch and drag the names of States to the correct location on the map.

At times, I know that I have found it difficult to find applications to use my SmartBoard effectively. This website is a great resource for elementary and middle school teachers looking to find ways to get their students up out of their seat and actively participating in the class discussion. Take a look around and see if you find something particularly interesting and share it with others.

Great Interactive Whiteboard Sites

Here is a great blog from Hall Jackson of Australia called the Interactive Classroom. In this new post, he provides a list of IWB sites for "Lower Primary Grades". To use Yanks, that would mean Elementary and Middle School. It covers all subjects and will work great Smartboards. I took a look around and there are some things you might find helpful if you do some searching. If you find something some of our Middle School teachers might like, pass it along.

Abstract Art Without The Mess

I learned about this site from @Ktenkely on her website iLearntechnology. It's an interacitve site that allows you to create Jackson Pollock style paintings without any of the mess. This is great fun on the Smartboard. By clicking the mouse you change to a random color and splashes of paint appear as you move the mouse across the screen. JacksonPollock.org is a wonderful site that art teachers can use that will save you a big cleanup in the future.

-Give it a try!

See The World From Your Classroom

Here is a great site teachers can use to explore different parts of the world. Here are some of the places you can go:

Explore the Taj Mahal
Stonehenge
 
Mount St. Helens

The Supreme Court

US Capitol Virtual Tour
 
Louvre
 
Just click on this link and you will have access to 100 Great Trips you can take your students on.
 
Give it a Try!

Pictures Galore

Here is a great site for teachers to use and share with their students. National Geographic has put many of their great photographs online. These can be a great resource in Social Studies classes. Take a look around and see how you might use these images in your class. Maybe they can add a little spice to your powerPoint Presentation you have been using for a few years. Take a look around here.

Give it a try!

Math Teachers Unite!

It was brought to my attention that it is World Math Day on March 3rd by Kelly Tenkely and her iLearn Technology blog post. I thought this would be a fun site to share with the Math teachers in the district. It's a free site for students 5-18 years old and they can practice Math with various games leading up to the main event on March 3rd. The main event is a competition that involves 60 second games and points are awarded to the student for every correct answer. The goal for a students is receive the most points and enter the Hall of Fame. It looks like a nice way to change up the pace for a day and really let kids have a chance to use their math and take some pride in their skills. Plus, wouldn't you want to brag if your students made the Hall of Fame? You know I would. :-) Check out the World Math Day site or iLearn Technology for more details.

-Give it a try!

Helpful Science Websites

Here a couple of great links for Science teachers to check out. I did some searching and asked some friends and this was what they suggested. Some of the pages looked interesting to a non Science person, so I hope they can be helpful to your students.

• HHMI's BioInteractive
• Great Site for Science Teachers!
  Tags: Teachers, Science
• 
  
  Science Netlinks: Lesson Index
  Great place for science links.
  Tags: Teachers, Science

Posted from Diigo.

Side Bar - Another cool thing about using Diigo is that these links were posted on my blog from the site. All I needed to do was add a few comments at the top and the post is good to go. Diigo Rules.

-Give it a try!

Typing Practice

iLearn Technology posted a few thoughts and links about two cool typing sites. I wish I had these instead of dying of dysentary on the Oregon Trail. @KTenkely does a marvelous job explaining the sites. One is based on Rock Band where kids have to hit they keys to keep up with the music and the other focuses spelling words as they float across the screen. See if it can be helpful in your class.

Typing Practice

Give it a try!