Museum Box

This is a neat site that allows students to create presentations to show and display pictures, images, and documents

museum box

SMART Response

I got to play with a SMART response system in class today! My little head is reeling with possibilities. There were some technical difficulities but nothing that playing a bit more won't solve. This program produces the most beneficial data about students, that along with the ease of use makes this my new favorite toy!

5 minute videopedia

AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME! This web source is sooo cool. It is a collection of videos that are all around 5 minutes that cover a variety of topics. I found quite a few that related to my content area. Now you have to do some searching but it is sooo worth it. I found three videos that I can use to highlight events that occured in the civil war! It seems more like a collection of movie maker videos made by people who are professionals. I found the content page much more helpful so I have included it Here! Really check it out! It is really cool. I am not sure yet if I can get it at school because of the firewalls but I sure do hope so!

Facebook use idea

Since most of our students are familiar with facebook and the formatting it would be a great idea to capitalize on that. I read an article on a blog I follow History Tech about how to use it to do research about people. If we do a print screen copy and paste to a profile and then block out the information and pictures to replace it with our own information (like with info about Abe Lincoln). This could be a way to encourage our kids. My only issue is how to publish it so that they can edit the page to add things but not change what is already there (like moving the boxes that hide the information). Any ideas please comment! On the blog I found this on he also mentioned using it for twitter as a discussion piece for classes but I am not familiar enough with twitter to grasp that one! :)

opportunities for Pen Pals around the world

I found a great site that enables teacher from around the world to put out ads for correspondance with classes around the world for various reasons. There are hundreds of different countries participating and all are looking for penpals for thier students. This seems like a great opportunitiy for student to student communication in a safe enviroment! Students of the World Seems soooo cool!

SMART Exchange

I have found some of the neatest whiteboard activites that others created on SMART Exchange I have found that a lot of these are good springboards to thinking about my own activites that I might create. I think it is a great reasource for some (including myself!) who are not all that familiar with SMART board technology. I found this site and ended up spending hours looking though possible activites and template ideas. SOOO much fun! :)

Funny Cops Rap of Rules

One of the funniest videos for the begining of the year! This cop is hilarious! Love the outtake!

Hilarious Cop!

Funny thing about technology...

I find it quite humerous that I have 8 days before school starts and I really have no idea how some of the technology I am getting is used. :) My point being I have been up to school for the most part of this week planning and getting ready for my classes, that are very fast approaching and I feel like I will have to redo much of what I have already done to incorporate the new tech. Well anyway, as I am planning I am playing around with how in the world do I incorporate a senteo (like CPS), how does it work, how will it improve my instruction and student learning? Basically a rambling of whats, hows, whens and whys. I would imagine that once I get the devices and have some time to play with them myself I will feel better, but the chances are that I will not get the smartboard installed for quite a while:) I will explain, in my classroom there are places that have needed painting since the end of last year when they took down some pegboard. If they can't manage to paint the walls what chances do you think I have to get a smartboard installed? Should be interesting:) I think the stress is showing! :)

I need to keep this little guy handy! :)

Fractions RAP

Mr Duey Fractions video found on Tech in Class blog! it is really a neat rap about fractions! If you go to YouTube and search for Mr Duey you will find some videos he posted and some examples. He does all subject types and he aslo has his own website Mr. Duey's Web site!

Technology In Class

Technology In Class cool blog with a lot of information about ways to use technology in schools. It is paid for using tax dollars so everything is free! AWESOME! I always like to hear that :)

Class Calender

Assign-a-day has this great website that provides a cool calender for students and parents. The calender allows the teacher to post assignments with descriptions and these assignments are visable on the calender page with commments in the form of a pop-up menu. If you provide a school email it also provides that at the bottom of the page for questions. It seems like a great tool to help everyone involved in the learning stay on the same page. My Calender

The Price of Freedom collection

Primary source search for military historyA real good resource for doing primary research for kids seems like an awesome way to look at military history. It is really neat to look at the artifacts of any given war and then get to look at them in context. It really is awesome!

Thinkfinity!

Awesome resource for some ideas for lesson plans in all areas! You can also submit your own resources for others to share! There is just about anything you want to find here, it is for all discipline areas. I have explored and found lesson plans,games and interactive ideas and I know that I have not seen everything yet! Definitely worth exploring!Thinkfinity

My Kids Turn

My kids Turn WebsiteYouTube videos that are geared towards strategies to teach kids. I read that there are plans to include print resources for the strategies. I read this from the blog on wordpress History Tech.

Awesome Flash Game about Admendments!

Just finished playing a court game twice and it was really fun and educational about the court system. This could be used effectively as a review for the amendments. The site was Do I Have a Right? Game

WordPress for School Use

I just stumbled on the fact that blogger cannot be accessed in our schools due to the wonderful security wall! :) So I am thinking that wordpress would be better since I can access it at home to post assingments for students who miss and such. I would also like to be able to have students leave feedback but I am not that familiar with wordpress...I guess I have some research ahead of me :)

New fun way to do research!

Just read a post by an old professor(Jonathan Rees) about holding an "Iron Chef" type of reasearch topic. It sounded sooo cool! Instead of having a mystery ingredient there is a mystery topic or question. Since the Iron Chefs select a list of ingredients as teachers we could provide a list of primary sources using Google Books and Chronoling America newspaper articles. The students can work in teams to do the best research they can. He is a college professor looking to do this in his classes but I think that it could easily be adjusted to do at a lower level. By adjusting the topic to grade level and adjusting the primary sources to not only be newspaper sources but Images found on the internet or in thier textbooks. In general it seems more like a modified competitive web quest than anything else. It will help speed up the research process becasue if it follows the Iron Chef format there are some pretty big limits on time. I think that this could be really fun in my US history classroom!

Animoto!

Animoto a new way to produce music video type slide shows. Seems to have some more cababalities than Windows movie maker. Online program comes with preloaded songs you can use that already have the rights aquired. Something that students can use to make movies from pictures online! This would work perfectly with a video recorder or a digital camera in the classroom. The really cool thing it is avaliable for free for educators! Seems like an awesome resource I can't wait to play with it a little!

TEC 1st Post

My expectations for the program, one thing I am excited to learn about, and how I feel technology will change my classroom.

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I have pretty high expectations of the class becasue I really want to learn how to use technology effectively. I enjoy playing with technology on my own and using it as the teacher but I really want to learn how to enrich students experience in my class through technology. I expect this program to enable me with techniques to enhance my instruction and activities in the class

I am really excited to learn about the smart board and the senteo unit that goes along with it! I think that this technology will really help me to engage my classes! I never really got to play with a smartboard in my college educaiton classes so I am really excited to get the chance to now in my class! :)

Finally I feel that technology will change my classroom in the way the learners relate to my content. I think that many learners tend to shy away from history because of the previous experience they have had with it. My hope in adding technology to my class is that students will learn to appreicate history and enjoy some aspect of it.

First Post with History Technology:)

Readers,
The fun part here will be learning about all of the different forms to technology that I can use in my classroom. This will be a learning experience:) I have always enjoyed gadgets and the latest technology so it will be fun to apply this to the class I teach.
Now when most people think about history classes they think BORING! Now this is usually because the primary method to teach history is lecture. Now if a teacher is to add interactive elements with technology....boom! you have them hooked. Our students today are learners in the 20th Century! We have to treat them that way. Some history teachers still to this day use the stand and deliver approach along with read this and answer that. Until as a group we can begin to fix this forever will our generations of kids grow up without the knowledge of their nation or the world!