StoryCorps - America Telling Their Story

Thanks to Michael Zimmer for passing this site along on his blog. 

The one thing I really wish I had was some of the stories my grandparents told about growing up in Italy. I hear some of the stories from relatives that remember bits and pieces of them and I remember some of those stories, but we all know what happens when you play the telephone game. Now there is a way for our generation to save these important stories for our future generations.

StoryCorp is a site that offers to store your stories for free. Here is a snippet from their About Us page;

"StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, over 50,000 everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages."

They have places set up all around the country for people to make an appointment and tell their story. Over time, these stories will help define who we are as a people and it can be an invaluable resource in teaching history. History is often viewed as old men doing things that happened a long time ago. History texts are just filled with names and dates and students find it hard to engage in learning that information. I feel that StoryCorps offers the chance for History teachers to bring stories of people who lived history to the classroom. There is an educators toolkit that will help teachers considering using StoryCorps in the classroom. 

One example of how this site might be utilized in the classroom is the September 11th section. There is a full collection of stories told by various individuals about how the events of September 11th have impacted their lives. Watching news stories and researching information on the internet is one thing, but hearing people talk about the event is important as students learn the importance of Primary Sources. Listening to these stories could reach some students in a very important way that a text book might never accomplish. 

Take some time and check out the site. You might find it helpful for your class or you might even decide to make an appointment and telling your story to America. 

- Give it a try!

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.

Skyping in the Classroom

Skype is a tool that allows people to chat with a video connection from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. Schools have been using this tool for a couple of years to knock down the walls of their school and let their students see the world around them. Around the World in 80 Schools is an idea from the Langwitches Blog that took the idea of using Skype in the classroom.  This blog is run by Silvia Tolisano and it is filled with wonderful ideas and resources that is worth a look through. If you are on Twitter, you should be following her @langwitches to keep up to date on her adventures in the classroom.

Her goal for this project was to connect with 80 different schools over the course of 6 months. Her blog outlines the project and offers various updates over the course of the 6 months. She created a Ning that has all of the information you could want about setting up something similar in your class. Here is a great video that explain the adventure she went on.




Here are some links that will take you to sites that can connect you with classrooms that are looking for Skype partners.

Skype other Classrooms from Edublogger

Skype in Schools

Skype for Educators

Skype in the Classroom - Click on the Comments to see those willing to Skype

50 Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom

Here are some bookmarks from Langwitches that you might find helpful.


Don't feel overwhelmed by the amount of information presented here. Like all good lessons, take you time and see how this might work in your classroom. As a student, I would ave loved the chance to talk to other students from all over the world about books we are reading or to be able to get first hand knowledge about a country we are studying. Take the time and see how this would impact your students.

- Give it a try!

Tools for the 21st Century Teacher

I found this great document on my Google Reader today and thought I would pass it on to you wonderful people. Michael Zimmer is Technology Integration Specialist and has posted many great things on his blog, The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness. Please take a moment and add his blog to your reader or scan through his posts. It is worth your time if you are interested in integrating technology into your classroom.

The document below is something Michael put together to provide some information on some very valuable tools for teachers in the 21st Century. I have used these tools in my life and in the classroom and they have done wonders for creating a more interactive and engaging learning environment in my classroom. Take a look at these tools and see how you might be able to incorporate them into your class.

Open publication - Free publishing - More 21st century


- Give it a try!

Simply a Great Blog for All Educators to Read

I have been reading Principal Eric Sheninger's blog A Principal's Reflections for a while now and I always love what he has to say. Recently, he had a student guest blog on his site. It was an amazing insight into leadership, technology and student-centered learning. It was a very well written post that received many interesting comments from readers. After seeing some of the comments, the student, Filip Piasevoli, sent a response post and asked if it could be posted. Follow these two links to read the original post and his follow-up post.

Post 1

Post 2

Are we meeting the needs of students like Filip? Are we cultivating the Leadership needed to grow as a school and community? It might not be a bade idea to take a moment and reflect on how we are creating environments that support all of our students and encourage them to be leaders in the technology age.

- Nick

Bookmarking with Diigo

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that from my students. Another one I love to hear is, "What do you mean I can't use Wikipedia as a source?" As an English Teacher, I have spent many long hours teaching students how to conduct proper searches on the internet. In case any of you do not know, all Freshmen at Grosse Pointe South are taught about proper searches and proper citation. They should never be able to tell you that they were never taught how to properly cite information or where to look that information up.

With that having been said, sometimes I just want my students to look at a few specific websites for a specific project. I have started using a great site I want to share with you great teachers. The site is called Diigo and it is a bookmarking site. By creating a free profile, you can add specific pages to your account and direct students or other teachers to look at them. That is not the only thing you can do with this great tool though.

Highlighting - You can highlight specific information before you bookmark the site. This can save people time when there is to much information to read through and all you want is a few lines.

Sticky Notes - You can places notes on the highlighted areas to remind you of their relevance. There have been too many times where I have bookmarked a site and I could not remember why I saved it a day or so later.

Groups - You can create specific groups and send pages you find to that group only. You can make the group a public group (anyone can join) or a private group (you select who can join). After some time, I will make the teacher's group a private group to keep nosy teenagers at bay.

Email - You can directly email any site yo find to yourself or other teachers. You can create an address book and send the site directly to students or to other teachers in your department.

Teacher Account - You can request to sign up for a Teacher Account from Diigo. This will allow you to sign up students to join your specific groups that you have created. I have a Teacher Account, but am not using it with my students yet. I'm just creating groups and keeping them open to the public. I put links to them on my website so they can view the groups without an account. It could come in handy if I want to email them sites to look at over the weekend.

Linking Accounts - Diigo allows you to link your blog and Twitter accounts to your Diigo account. This way, if you bookmark something, it can be posted to you blog and your Twitter. You can set up a your account to post all the bookmarks you have made to your blog. It can be set for a daily, twice daily or weekly. This is a great way to save you time. You can also link your iPhone to Diigo as well. Download the Diigo App and you will have access to anything that you have bookmarked. It migth be available for other phones, but you would have to check for that.

The best way to start bookmarking after you create your account is to download the toolbar. It will sit at the top of your browser and you just click the bookmark button when you want to share a website. There are many other great parts of Diigo that you can use. It's best to log on and play around a bit. Have fun!

I Love ILearnTechnology

I wanted to use this Tech Tuesday to give a shout out to an amazing blogger and provide a great resource for all of the non-high school teachers in the district. If you only look at one other blog the rest of the school year, this one needs to be it.This blog needs to be your go to spot for all things Elementary School Tech. There are so many great reviews of sites and tools there have been times I actually wish I taught the little ones just so I could play with these sites. Try not to be overwhelmed by the volume of posts. Just take your time and sift through the different tools and find one that fits you and your class best.

ILearnTechnology is an amazing blog run by Kelly Tenkely (@ktenkely) and it won the 2009 Edublog Award for Educational Technology and Support Blog. The blog is very deserving of the award. Kelly provides a rundown on many different web applications on her blog. Here is a screen shot of a post of hers.

As you can see, she breaks down each review into What it is, How to integrate and Tips. She does this with her post to not only explain how these tools work, but she offers suggestions on how to use them in the classroom. With some bloggers or tech people, they tell you about a tool, but fail to really tell you how they would or have used it in the classroom. Kelly is not one of those people. She works very hard to post many new and exciting reviews of interesting tools that can add something great to your every day lessons. 

Kelly is also an avid tweeter and is always dropping bits of information that I, as well as many others, find very helpful throughout any given day. Every Elementary school teacher interested in integrating more technology should have ILearnTechnology bookmarked on their browser and saved on the desktop. Stop by her site and leave her a comment if you find something helpful or have a question about using the tool in your class. She is one of the friendliest people out there and is great at responding to comments on her posts. 

I hope you find this site helpful and I will continue to direct other grade levels to blogs and people that might offer better suggestions and reviews of grade appropriate tech tools. 

- Give it a try!

Potpourri of Great Resources

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone. Here are some great resources that could spice up any lesson plan. Take a look at some of these sites and see how these might be used in your class.
Web 2.0  Projects - First, here is a Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 - The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design,^[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web.

I have have tremendous success with struggling learners and reluctant learners by incorporating more Web 2.0 into my lessons and allowing them to use Web 2.0 in their class projects. I have found that allowing students to use tools that allow them to collaborate with one another really allows growth in understanding. This link will take you to some great student examples of Web 2.0 tools. You will find examples of Blogging, VoiceThread, Wikis, Nings, Animoto, Photopeach and Xtranormal. I highly suggest you take a look at Xtranormal because there is a rapping Einstein that will have you rolling. Do not feel overwhelmed with all of these new tool. Just think about adding one to your lesson at a time. You might just want to have some fun with it and present it to the class as a part of something you are teaching. That might spur kids to experiment with the tools themselves and use them for their next project.

Stag'D! - Here is a great site that I heard about from @ktenkely and her blog iLearnTechnology. Check out the complete review that she gave the site here. Long story short, Stag'D allows students to tell stories in 3D. I can see this being used in many different ways in my English class. I could have students use it to re-create events from stories we are reading to emphasize themes, symbols, motifs, etc. Social studies classes could use this to re-create historical moments or speeches. It is another fun and interactive tool that allows students to not just learn material, but to create with it. Creating with the new information has made a real difference in my classes and I think Stag'D is another great tool to facilitate that creativity.

Here is a great collection of Copyright Free and Public Domain Images. I'm not sure if I shared this exact link or another one with similar free pics, but we can never have enough resources in our pocket as teachers. This is worth linking on your class website, the school website and even the library website so students can use pictures for projects and presentations without violating copyright laws.

I hope you take a look at these sites and pass them around to others if you find anything worth while. As these students spend more time collaborating online with their peers, it is important that we start to look at tapping into these great resources to connect them to learning inside of the classroom. If you are looking for something specific, don't forget to drop me a line and I'll see what I can do.

- Give it a try!

Arithmaroo and You Too: An App Review

Picture from http://arithmaroo.com/

Full Disclosure, I'm no good at Math. It has never been my strong suit and I currently eat lunch with the Math Department in the hope I can build enough credit to have them tutor my future children. :-) I ran across Arithmaroo on Twitter and they suggested I take a look at their Arithmaroo 1: A Counting Math Game for Kids app. As an English teacher, I wasn't sure what to expect from this app, but the @Arithmaroo people were so nice, I couldn't say no. Here are my thoughts on the app.

The app is a very simple game that allows up to 4 players and one guest to store scores and compare them with friends. The screen consists of a row of numbers and pictures that appear. The pictures might be rocks in various order or hands holding up fingers. Their might be multiple hands with different number of fingers or many rocks in various formations.The goal is too quickly count the objects on the screen and select the correct number. As time ticks down, the picture at the top changes from a Kangaroo (fastest), a Salamander (Fast) and a Turtle (The Nerdy Teacher Speed). The first level is fairly simple and focuses on numbers 1-5. It took me a couple of times to get straight Kangaroos, but I eventually got through it. 

Level 2 has 10 numbers and the combination of rocks and fingers intensifies. Again, this took me many tries, but eventually I made it to level 3. Level 3 brought me to a dark place as I tried to count objects in the allotted time up to 20. After stressing for 20 minutes, I was able to jump to level 4 where the total number goes to 50. That is where the level review ends because I have no idea what is beyond that and may never find out. I guess it is 75 or 100, but I'll need to ask one of my younger cousins to give it try and let me know how it goes.

I took a couple of days off from playing the app and went back and was surprised to see that I had an easier go of it the second time around. My responses were faster and I had more points than I did last time as well. I still could not get past level 4, but I felt that I was doing better. I was learning to identify patterns and identify quantity at a much faster pace. From that perspective, I would say the app is wonderful. If anything can improve my quick math skills,  think it's great.

As a high school English teacher, I can only guess how this would play in the Elementary Math classes. I think the fact that multiple students can store their scores on one app is great. It allows some nice competition amongst peers. Teachers could reward students for attaining certain levels and have class competitions if there are enough iPods to go around. Given time to play with this app, I can see that students would strengthen their Math skills. I have never been strong at looking at items and adding them up, but this app could help me grow in that area with continued use. 

 I think the timer moves a little too fast, but I think that is because I'm terrible at counting quickly. I did not encounter any glitches along the way. I tried selecting various wrong answers to see if it would freeze or shut down, but nothing happened. The clock stood that at turtle, mocking me, as it waited for me to eventually get the correct answer. I think it would be nice to see different images over time, but since I never made it past level 4, I'm not sure if there were others.

I think this would be a fun app to add to a class set of iPod Touches in Math classes or for personal use. The app looked great on the my iPad as well. Kids would strive to beat their previous best, their friends high scores and even their parents totals. For $1.99, I think it is a good buy if parents and/or teachers are looking at a fun way to help kids with their spatial math skills.

Thanks to Arithmaroo for talking me into this app because I will be recommending it to the teachers in my district. Great job and I look forward to seeing other great apps from you in the future.

Pictures from www.arithmaroo.com

Great Sources of Tech Info!

Here are two Glogs created by @MZimmer557

His blog is filled with amazing tips that every teacher interested in technology should read and have fun with in class. He is a great resource on Twitter and had shared wonderful ideas that I have passed on to you. Check out his blog and follow this man on Twitter.

One is a collection of videos on how to use some Web 2.0 Tools and the other one is about using Twitter. Take a look at these and see how they might help your classroom.

Bookmarking on the Web

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that from my students. Another one I love to hear is, "What do you mean I can't use Wikipedia as a source?" As an English Teacher, I have spent many long hours teaching students how to conduct proper searches on the internet. In case any of you do not know, all Freshmen at Grosse Pointe South are taught about proper searches and proper citation. They should never be able to tell you that they were never taught how to properly cite information or where to look that information up.

With that having been said, sometimes I just want my students to look at a few specific websites for a specific project. I have started using a great site I want to share with you great teachers. The site is called Diigo and it is a bookmarking site. By creating a free profile, you can add specific pages to your account and direct students or other teachers to look at them. That is not the only thing you can do with this great tool though.

Highlighting - You can highlight specific information before you bookmark the site. This can save people time when there is to much information to read through and all you want is a few lines.

Sticky Notes - You can places notes on the highlighted areas to remind you of their relevance. There have been too many times where I have bookmarked a site and I could not remember why I saved it a day or so later.

Groups - You can create specific groups and send pages you find to that group only. You can make the group a public group (anyone can join) or a private group (you select who can join). After some time, I will make the teacher's group a private group to keep nosy teenagers at bay.

Email - You can directly email any site yo find to yourself or other teachers. You can create an address book and send the site directly to students or to other teachers in your department.

Teacher Account - You can request to sign up for a Teacher Account from Diigo. This will allow you to sign up students to join your specific groups that you have created. I have a Teacher Account, but am not using it with my students yet. I'm just creating groups and keeping them open to the public. I put links to them on my website so they can view the groups without an account. It could come in handy if I want to email them sites to look at over the weekend.

Linking Accounts - Diigo allows you to link your blog and Twitter accounts to your Diigo account. This way, if you bookmark something, it can be posted to you blog and your Twitter. You can set up a your account to post all the bookmarks you have made to your blog. It can be set for a daily, twice daily or weekly. This is a great way to save you time. You can also link your iPhone to Diigo as well. Download the Diigo App and you will have access to anything that you have bookmarked. It might be available for other phones, but you would have to check for that.

The best way to start bookmarking after you create your account is to download the toolbar. It will sit at the top of your browser and you just click the bookmark button when you want to share a website. There are many other great parts of Diigo that you can use. It's best to log on and play around a bit.

- Give it a try!

Power Out, but Still Blogging

Here is another great reason why I love my iPad. I spent the last hour working on another post when the power cut out. Now, I did not lose the post thanks to Bloggers auto save, but it is very annoying to not have power in your house. The weather is crappy, hence the no power, so I can't go outside. Since I have the 3G, I don't have to worry about no WiFi to use my iPad. Just scrolling around the pages of the iPad, I have more than enough to keep me busy until the power is turned back on. Heck, I am able to write this post because of the 3G and the keyboard accessory.

For those of you out there that are skeptical about buying an iPad, just stop it already. It might not be the pinnacle of technology and it would be cool if it had a front facing camera (I'm sure that is in the next version), but what I have been able to do with my iPad has been very helpful in different situation. Heck, I was still able to run my classroom without missing a beat this week because of a virus that took out the students AND teacher servers. I was able to take attendance and enter in grades while other teachers were passing around sign in sheets for a few days. That was a nice feeling.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Later Gators!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Hello Twitter World

I've posted about using Twitter before and I thought it was time to update my reasons why I Tweet and try to convince more people to jump on board.

I've been on Twitter since January and it has been a wild ride. I started out with one account I was going to use at school to update homework assignments for the classes I currently teach. Students could choose to follow me and have daily updates regarding homework. It has gone ok. Some students are skeptical, but others have found the reminders to be very helpful. @MrProvenzano is where you can find me if you are curious to know the nights homework in American Literature.

I started my Masters in Ed Tech and I needed to create a different Twitter account and a blog for a class and I started @TheNerdyTeacher and The Nerdy Teacher. They really didn't take off until I started to follow and chat with @ShellTerrell and @KTenkely. They really helped me make great connections with other people and always have great resources to share. Check out iLearntechnology.com for amazing sites from @KTenkely. Shelly has an awesome blog you should check out as well.

These two mediums have allowed me gain such tremendous insight and information on the world of educational technology. I feel at times I am learning far more from the people I have met through Twitter than my CMU class. I have gained over 1,400 followers and 200 daily hits on the blog from all over the world. I'm not writing that to brag, I'm writing it to emphasize a point. I'm connected to the entire world from little ole' Michigan. I've only been on board with Twitter and the other blog for a few months and my resource base continues to grow. I like to demonstrate the power of my Professional Learning Network (PLN) by asking skeptical teachers for a topic and submitting it to Twitter. Within minutes, I will have over 15 responses with different resources on tech alternatives, lesson plans, interactive activities, etc. I feel that these teachers from around the country and the world have made me a better teacher through sharing.

I take the wonderful sites I encounter daily and sift through them to pass along the gems I think GP teachers will use and love. As much as I love tech and can evaluate items from a tech aspect, I'm not an expert in all areas of content. This is why it's important for you to join Twitter and start the looking at sites on your own. It doesn't take much time at all. You can just scroll through a handful of tweets a day and look for key words that jump out at you. You will be surprised at how quickly you will catch on.

Here are a couple of tips for a new Tweeter:

1. Here is a list of great people to follow once you create your account. Follow all of these people and keep an eye out for great resources.

2. Once you find a great resource, pass it to others and always thank the person who sent it out. This is how you will make friends and add followers.

3. Start posting some of your own ideas. Twitter for teachers is a sharing community. You have to give a little to get a little.

4. Convince others to join with you. It's easier if you have friends that jump on board together that way you will not feel so lonely in the beginning.

5. Join the #Edchat Conversation. Click here to see what it is all about. Shelly Terrell is one of the coolest people I have had the chance to know while using Twitter. Her blog is amazing and she is willing to help anyone. She should be #1 on your To Follow List.

Here are couple of links about getting started on Twitter. Check them out and feel free to send me questions. If you create an account, send me the Twitter ID so I can send it to everyone I know to say hello to you.

7 Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter

10 Things Teachers Should Know to Get Started With Twitter

Twitter Handbook For Teachers

Twitter for Teachers

I hope this information is helpful and encourages you to jump on board with Twitter.

-Give it a try!

Great Social Studies Resources and More

Here is a great link posted on Twitter by @rmbyrne that will take you to 12 Wonderful Social Studies Resources. You will find some excellent content from Google as well as the National Archives. Thi site is worth a bookmark in your folder. There are also some educational games linked to events in History as well as a couple of sites that allow students to create interactive timelines. After checking those sites out, you should explore the rest of Free Tech for Teachers. There are other of great resources to be found on the site that can improve any lesson for any subject.

- Give it a try!

Great Smartboard Resources

Here is a collection of sites that you can use with your Smartboard. This link was passed on to my by a Twitter pal, @sharnon007. You really need to follow them to get great tech tips daily.

Http://bit.ly/cDa150

There are sections for Kindergarten, Primary, ESL and a section labeled Something for Everyone. The site also has links directly to other Smart Resources.

Sometimes it is tough to find great resources to get the most out of the IWB, however these should help you great interactive lessons.

- Give it a try!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Great Collection of Sites for Teachers and Students

Here are some great sites I have found over the past few weeks and I thought I would pass them along to you. Remember that if you are new to the blog, you should check out some of my older posts to see if there is anything you might have missed that could be helpful in your classroom.

Here is a great collection of Digital Storytelling tools collected by Ozge Karaoglu. Ozge is an awesome teacher that has put together some amazing collections of web tools for students to use. Click on her name to read her profile and see her e-portfolio. You should bookmark her page because she is sure to have something great to share with each post.

Jog the Web - This is a great site passed on by Anne Carnevale's Blog. Jog the web allows a teacher to set up a series of web pages the students explore in a set order. The best part is that it also allows the teacher to leave annotated notes that lets the teacher ask guiding questions as the student explores the web page. This would be great to use for Web Quests. There are many great examples on the site, but here is one that was created to provide background on Anne Frank before the students read her diary. This could allow students to have a guided tour of important webpages from their home. This is worth a look.

Awesome Stories is a search engine for Primary Resources. I think this site will be tremendously helpful in Social Studies classes as students look for court cases, biographies, news articles on important events and even video. Students often claim, "I can't find anything good to use." or "Why can't I just use Wikipedia?" Awesome Stories allows students to search a large archive of Primary Resources that should make their research easier and more meaningful. This should be a must have on all Social Studies websites for students doing research.

Here is a great post on Free Technology For Teachers video tutorials on proper citation. As a High School English Teacher, I find that students still struggle with correct citation of information. These guided videos could help teach students the correct way to cite information they intend to use in papers or projects. Little things like this would be great to add to personal website so students can access them whenever they have questions about citation. The videos are geared more toward Upper Elementary and Middle School, but I think anyone that has citation questions could use this and learn.

I hope you take a minute and look through these sites. They could come in very handy in class and really help students and even parents. Pass along these sites and consider posting them on your school site so students and parents can access the information from home.

As always, give it a try!

A Great Collection of Math Sites!

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone! Here are a collection of Math Links I've put togehter over the past couple of weeks. I hope that you take a second and scan these sites. You do not have to use all of these in your classroom, but you should consider looking at them and consider placing the links on your school website and letting students and parents know about them. These sites below all offer Math help in different ways. Take a chance and see how these students can benefit from an online component to their Math Learning.

Here is a great collection of Math Sites from @Kellyhines. She put together a Livebinder Collection of 16 helpful Math sites for students and teachers of all grade levels. This could be very helpful for teachers looking for different ways to present material and it could also be great for teachers looking for sites to send students who are looking for extra help.

Teacher Zone is a site dedicated to Math videos. They will help explain concepts that are important to Math students from grades 3-10. This could be another way to show students important concepts in action. Adding these videos to your website could go a long way in helping a student learn an concept. It might even help a parent understand a concept so they can better help their child at home.

MatheBook is another website that offers tutorials on Math and downloadable questions and answers to further help students understand difficult Math Concepts. I think it is great that there are more and more Math websites available to students and teachers. Websites are see have been more geared toward Science, Social Studies and English, but there are many kids waiting to use sites that focus on Math skills. This is another good one to share with students and staff.

MathTrain.Tv is a wonderful site provides more Math help through video, but the thing that separates this from other Math sites is that the videos are created and uploaded by students. It's students helping students. This is a great concept to explore in your classroom. Imagine offering credit or extra credit to students that create Math videos to post to this site or even your own school website. Sometimes we learn ideas better if we have to teach them. This site is a great example of how Math can be interactive and use technology to spread ideas.

I hope you give these sites a try and pass them on to your website for students and parents look at. In the long run, it could really help some students learn concepts they have been struggling to learn.

The iTouch and iPad In The Classroom

My iPad was delivered yesterday and I couldn't be happier. I took it out of the box and loaded it with all of the goodies I've had my eye on for months. The picture is clear and sound is great. The keyboard is easy to use and few mistakes are made. I would say I make the same amount of mistakes I do using a normal keyboard. I've never hid my nerviness when it comes to Mac. Some might call me a fanboy, but Apple is the company I grew up with. My dad bought the first Mac and told us that computers were going to be the future and we needed to learn how to use them. Since that Christmas day many years ago, I've been a Mac fan.

Back to the "magical" device. I understand that some people say it's just a bigger iPod touch. Yes, it is bigger and does many of the same things as the Touch. That argument does not hold any water if you are still using 12 inch screens to watch TV. The iPad allows me to see much more and read easier. My iCal is much larger and I can now see all of my lesson plans at once, instead of shuffling through other screens on my iPhone. Reading books and news articles is wonderful on the iPad as well. I loved using my iPhone to cruise through the news, but it is small and tough to maneuver at times. The iPad allows me to quickly surf the internet with little problem. It will make that part of my life much easier.

After messing around with it for a few hours, I was constantly thinking of all of the ways that this can be used in my classroom. Here are some of the ideas I came up with. I'm sure this will be a growing list and please feel free to comment and offer other ideas.

I would love to have a class set of iPod Touches. The uses would be endless and my iPad would allow me to interact with all of my students at once. Here is what I'm thinking.

As an English teacher, discussion plays a large part in the learning process. Getting kids to discuss new and different ideas can be tough, but it is important. I've used Discussion Boards and Wallwishers to help facilitate discussion and it has helped some of the quieter students have a voice. While Wallwisher does allow for some instant feedback, I would like to see even more in the classroom and that is where iPod touches could come in.

I would love for each one of my classes to have a twitter account and we could make connections with other schools around the world and tweet about books, poem, short stories, themes, etc. We all know that education needs to move toward a more global mindset. Technology offers schools the ability to knock down old barriers and make global connections. Imagine a 30 minute class discussion on Rome and Juliet with a class from New York, Atlanta, Boston or even Grosse Pointe North. :-) Instant communication around the globe is just one great use of the Touches in the classroom.

Twitter could also be used as a way to quickly poll the class on ideas or questions that have come up in class. By using a hash tag, the ideas then can be archived for students to review at a later date. That is what makes it special.

Blogging is going to be a major part of my classes next year. Each class will have their own blog and a student will be assigned to recap the days learning and post the next days topic and homework. Students will be given the chance to comment on the student's post and add anything they felt was important for the days discussion. This will allow students who miss school to see what happened while they were gone, parents will be able to see exactly what happened in their son/daughter's class and the blogs could be opened up to other schools from all over to keep the conversation going. Imagine a blog run by a Freshmen English class that posts their comments on "To Kill a Mockingbird" and they wake up the next day to see what students in Germany, Italy or Japan have to say about the text they are reading as well. This type of connection is crucial as we push our students to expand their view of the world.

The Touches would allow the students to view the blog, respond to comments and even search for information without needing the teacher to sign up for limited lab space. More classes are going to be computers for projects and work and there is only so much lab space. The Touches allow computer access to a full class of students without having to leave the room.

The iPad would be used as a hub for all of the information flowing in and out of the classroom. It will allow me to keep a Twitter feed flowing and walk around the classroom while I project information from my desktop onto the Smartboard. My classroom will become a completely interactive zone. I'll be able to send information to all of my students at the touch of the screen. Students will then be able to access the information from their own iPod or iPhones once the information is out there.

I downloaded the Shakespeare App and it is awesome. I have complete access to all of his works with the ability to annotate as I read.This app is available for Touches and the iPhone as well. It would be great to be able to have students have access to the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Have you seen how big those books normally are? They are huge! Now I have every word he penned at my finger tips. E-book are the next step and the iPad is a great tool for that. Buying large textbooks is not very economical today. In English, they are too big and bulky for kids to carry around and most of the book can be found on-line as it is. Why have kids carry around these huge books when they can read the same story on-line for free? Most English teachers use other content to supplement that reading that comes from other sources outside of the textbook. We've seen SciFi movies where students walked around with their tablets and had complete access to all of the content presented in class. That doesn't seem so crazy anymore.

As teachers, our job is to make the information as accessible to the students. The information is out there and the students can get it without us if they really want to. We need to teach them how to find the information and the true capabilities of the devices the have. It will always be tough for teachers to learn and manage new technology in the classroom, but this movement toward free flowing, social networking, global education is not going to go away. The iPad and the iTouch could be used to knock down walls and introduce our students to a world they would never see otherwise.


- P.S. - I wrote this entire post from my iPad. Cool huh?