JayCut

JayCut is free web-based software that allows users to edit video. http://jaycut.com/

Intel Education - Visual Ranking Tool

Making a list is usually straightforward and requires little thought. But when it comes to ordering and prioritizing items in that list, higher-level skills of analysis and evaluation are put to use. The Visual Ranking Tool brings focus to the thinking behind making ordered lists. Students identify and refine criteria as they assign order or ranking to a list. They must explain their reasoning and can compare their work with each other in a visual diagram. This tool supports activities where students need to organize ideas, debate differences, and reach consensus. For example: Mrs. Ramey and I had our students rank the organelles (plant cell) in order from the most important organelle to the least important organelle. Students had to alsa provide a sentence explaining their reason for an oranelle's ranking. http://educate.intel.com/en/ThinkingTools/VisualRanking

LibriVox & Odiogo

LibriVox provides free audiobooks from the public domain. There are several options for listening. The first step is to get the mp3 or ogg files into your own computer: http://librivox.org/.
Odiogo's media-shifting technology expands the reach of your content: It transforms news sites and blog posts into high fidelity, near human quality audio files ready to download and play anywhere, anytime, on any device: http://www.odiogo.com/.

Combine Multiple PDF Files

Tired of having to organize and email numerous documents? Instead, combine multiple files into one document quickly and easily with Adobe Acrobat Professional (version 8 and 9). http://www.techlearning.com/article/21338

21st Century Ed Tech

Informative links on the left allow you to explore this site's extensive resources! A Blog preview below covers new and cutting edge ideas! Ideas you can use tomorrow that are free or inexpensive: http://21centuryedtech.wikispaces.com/

Wolfram Alpha

Today's WolframAlpha, http://www.wolframalpha.com/, is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. Enter your question or calculation and WolframAlpha uses its built-in algorithms and a growing collection of data to compute the answer. For example, I typed in my birthday and Wolfram Alpha provided me with the following information: Events on my birthday, how many days, weeks, years, etc. ago the date was from today, daylight information and phase of the moon. Very interesting...I believe that this site could be used in a variety of educational ways. Let me know if you utilize this site and by what means.

Map Maker

http://www.teacherled.com/2008/06/01/map-maker/ provides web-based software to create maps that are perfect for using with an interactive whiteboard or displaying via an overhead projector. Just scroll down and choose traditional map maker or treasure map maker and you will be on your way.

Google Translator

Did you know that you can read web pages in other languages by using Google Translator, http://www.google.com/options/. Google Docs also translates documents in over forty languages.

Sweet Searching with Google

For better search results, teachers and students alike, visit http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com/3568634. Watch the video for a better understanding of how using the Wonder Wheel option when using Google can save time and provide better results. The website also provides a demo on how to use the search timeline. The timeline allows users to sort results based on when they were published on the web. The video on this site will display at school but if you are unable to see the pictures then I would check out the above site at home.

The Best Social Studies Websites

An article, http://www.techlearning.com/article/14290, I found on Tech & Learning (www.techlearning.com) provides links and short descriptions for the best Social Studies websites.

Interactive Reading Lessons

TV 411 Reading, http://www.tv411.org/reading/, has a dozen reading lessons (Reading Charts and Graphs, Parts of a Newspaper, Reading Maps, etc.). http://unx1.shsu.edu/~txcae/Powerpoints/CauseandEffect.html - An interactive PowerPoint focusing on Cause & Effect.

Ten Creative Writing Activities

While they are all phrased for creative writing assignments here, many of them could be revised to work for other kinds of essays. The Show & Tell assignment and the Scavenger Hunt assignment, for example, could easily become descriptive essays. The Childhood Place short story could be revised to be a personal narrative. http://www.tengrrl.com/tens/017.shtml My favorite is the Jumble Story. My students are currently working on this assignment. After they have completed the required writing I hope to record some students reading their stories and then have them create a narration, with illustrations, using Microsoft Movie Maker.

Web 2.0

"Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web development and web design that facilitates interactive information sharing, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web.
Web 2.0 for the Classroom Teacher, http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listweb20s.html, is an excellent resource that includes references for creating podcasts, blogs, wikis, etc. There are also a large number of resources for online productivity and organizational tools. Choose a site or two a day to check out!

Student Assisted

This past week my science students have been conducting small experiments in class (i.e. Who can hop on one foot longer, Boys or Girls?) while continuing to learn about the Scientific Method. Several of the experiments required the use of a stopwatch, in which we only managed to find a few. A student came up with an innovative solution...she searched for an online stopwatch, http://www.online-stopwatch.com/.
I believe that YouTube is currently being blocked on our school network without a way to override the system. An alternative; http://www.teachertube.com/. As I am sure you have probably gathered from the link...it's just like YouTube but built solely for the purpose of education.

Rubric Maker

To all of you wonderful teachers who use rubrics (or would like to),

I found a FREE rubric maker online that makes grading so much easier! The website is http://rubistar.4teachers.org. It has many topics that you may cover in class along with rubrics you can use. Happy grading :)

What's New?

Check out TweenTribune, www.tweentribune.com, it is a free news site created by and for tweens. This site contains wonderfully written articles that are interesting to ready for both us and our students.
It's Your Call, www.webwisekids.org, is an online interactive educational game that allows children to practice responsible cell phone use and personal safety.
The games section at www.eastoftheweb.com is perfect for improving fluency and building a stronger vocabulary.

Rhee's 200-Page 'Framework' Spells Out Teaching Guidelines

A highly skilled teacher should never have more than five instances of "inappropriate or off-task behavior" by students within a half-hour of class time. At least three times in that span, an instructor should respond to students' correct answers by "probing for higher-level understanding" of the idea being discussed. And no more than three minutes of teaching time should be lost to poor organization or planning. (www.washingtonpost.com)

Good Stuff!

www.multilingualbooks.com now offers a clickable world map (click on Foreign Radio Online) to make finding an international radio station easier. This would be a great connection for students studying different areas of the world, or a wonderful resource for language teachers.
NSF International has developed a website ( www.scrubclub ) that teaches children how to properly wash their hands...flu season is just around the corner.
www.teachersfirst.com is offering free access to 10,000 online learning websites. Resources can be searched for by grade level, subject, keyword, etc. The search engine for this site only provides educational resources.
I receive the magazine Learning & Leading with Technology if anyone is interested in borrowing a copy or two. I currently have the August and September/October editions.

Two New Sites...

Flash Card Exchange, http://www.flashcardexchange.com/, allows users to create flash cards and then produce a hard copy, study the flash cards online, or share with students/teachers via the web.
VerbaLearn, http://www.verbalearn.com/, is a comprehensive vocabulary building site that uses audio, video, flashcards, and games. It is a great place for teachers to help students improve English vocabulary at home or school.

Thank You Fifth Grade Teachers!

On behalf of the sixth grade teachers I wanted to thank the Eastside fifth grade teachers for greatly preparing Edinburgh students for their first year of middle school, along with instilling respect and maturity. I should actually be thanking all staff members at Eastside, because success in school starts on the first day of kindergarten. So, thank you very much! We (sixth grade teachers) have been blessed the last two years with a terrific group of students. I hope to have some student work on here soon for you to see how well they are doing.

6th Grade Laptops

The 6th Grade Laptops are up and running...due to the hard work and dedication of our awesome technology staff (Bob and Jodie). The laptops arrived later than expected and we have experienced a few bumps along the way but Bob pulled a couple of all-nighters and made things happen. I hope to be completely paperless beginning next Monday (8/24). My science students have already gathered data, inserted their findings into Excel and then created a graph. The same students also took a poll via www.polleverywhere.com and will now create a poll of their own for their classmates to take, followed by writing a report to support a newly designed graph. My reading students created a Venn diagram comparing similes and metaphors through a flash application at www.readwritethink.org/materials/venn and then converted it to a pdf to share with their classmates. Today my language students will create a word bubble at www.wordle.net so that their classmates and I can learn more about them. This is just the beginning...it's going to be an exciting year. I hope to hear (or read) about all the great things going on through out the corporation.

Thinkfinity

http://www.thinkfinity.org/ provides free lesson plans and educational resources.

Scholastic Instructor

Many of you, I'm sure, are aware of the Scholastic website but there may be a few things that you are not aware of. My two favorite options are Free Stuff and Quick Ideas. Click on the following link ( http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/index.htm ) and scroll down for the above choices. Free Stuff includes contests, grants, and resources. Quick Ideas is categorized by grade and has a different theme (Math, English, Vocabulary, etc.) each month.

A New Way To Present

If you use PowerPoint or SMART software to create classroom presentations then you should try www.prezi.com. You can sign up for a free account, which allows for 100MB of free space. You can also download your prezi presentations to use offline, keeping your online storage space at a minimum. I would recommend that you spend some time viewing the prezi tutorials before getting started. My students have really enjoyed the prezi presentations that I have created!

Free PowerPoint Presentations!

www.pppst.com offers numerous free PowerPoint Presentations (PPTs) on every imaginable subject. Start out by clicking on the provided link, disregard the cheesy layout, scroll down, and then click on a subject of your choice. A new window will appear where you will have to choose a subtopic. After choosing a subtopic you will be given a list of available PPTs and web links for children. You can click on a PPT link and then open it or save it for later use. I normally save the PPT and then make changes so that it fits my needs.

English/Language Arts

www.thewritingsite.org is an excellent website that provides links to several writing resources. Last week while at a conference I became aware of this sites real purpose - Writing Assessment and Instruction. On The Writing Site homepage click on Scoring Instructions, which will lead you to a section where you can select a grade (k-12) and a genre. After selecting a grade and genre you are given a paper to grade. You will then be able to compare your scores to the expert scores and read the rationales. This is just one of the many things that you can do through The Writing Site.

Science Site

If you are looking for science experiments/activities to enhance your already great lesson plans then check out http://www.tryscience.com/ There are also some greats things on this site that you could use just for fun as the school year winds down. After clicking on a tab (Experiments, Field Trips, Adventures) be sure to use the arrows at the bottom to scroll through all of the ideas within each category.

Looking for New Resources?

The following two sites are great for finding free lesson plans, ideas, resources, etc.

http://free.ed.gov/

http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome

Great Things on Google, and more...

Now that you have a google account, thanks to our blog, there are so many other things you can take advantage of. #1 - Google Documents, ask Rachel; Google Docs Rocks. With Google Docs you can create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint like documents and then access them from anywhere there is a computer and Internet connection. You can also allow others access to documents of your choice for easy collaboration. #2 - Google Calendar; I would be lost without this application. You can create a calendar through Group Wise as well but the Google Calendar is much easier to access at home or via your phone. With the Calendar application you can create events and have Google remind you via the email you submitted when you signed up, plus much more. As educators, Google Books is another free application that we can take advantage of. Simply sign into our blog or http://www.google.com/ and click on More to view the different programs that are offered.

Another website to check out: http://www.education-world.com/

Earth Day

In observance of Earth Day (April 22) I was hoping that we could spend part of the week in the dark. Some of us may be in the dark all week, ha! By turning off some of our lights, or possibly all of them later in the week when the sun is out and we can use natural light by opening the blinds, we can explain to our students that taking small steps can lead to big rewards (e.g. saving energy and money).

Below our some links that you may find beneficial for Earth Day activities, information, etc.

http://www.earthday.net/

http://www.earthday.gov/

http://www.epa.gov/earthday/

http://www.designareusablebag.com/

http://holidays.kaboose.com/earth-day/