Plus 7-3-2014: Make Math a Game

 

Make Math a Game is devoted to helping people, both kids and adults, improve their math skills while having a good math experience.

 

Browse the Make Math a Game blog for ideas that can improve your math ability. The free website helps you understand the basics and alleviate confusion so that math becomes fun. The goal is to "give help to kids, teens, and adults who want to get better at math – and it doesn’t matter what your current math level is!”

 

In addition to the blog, there are sections on Math Concepts, Practice, Everyday Math, Math Tricks and Teasers, as well as special featured items.

 

 

The philosophy of Make Math a Game is that you can do math better with practice and the practice will be easier if it is fun.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Featured 5-27-2014: BrainPOP Educators

 

BrainPOP Educators presents tips, tools, and resources to excite and support anyone who educates young people.

 

BrainPOP offers animated educational movies, quizzes, games, activities, and other resources for students in grades 3-12, covering more than 750 topics in the areas of Science, Math, English, Social Studies, Health, Technology, and Arts & Music. The movies are supplemented with resources including a quiz, activities, related games, a timeline, and a selection of high-interest reading.

 

 

On BrainPOP Educators you’ll find resources including lesson plans, calendars of events, and creative suggestions for using BrainPOP in the classroom. It also includes a blog that announces new BrainPOP features, hosts guest bloggers, and follows current events from the world of educational technology. 

 

 

A database, searchable by standard, subject and grade level, correlates BrainPOP topics and games to Common Core math and English standards is available. The database also allows you to correlate BrainPOP movies with curriculum standards from individual states and Canadian provinces.

 

 See an overview of BrainPOP Educators

 

BrainPOP Educators offers a variety of training resources including outlines for giving workshops, handouts, and webinars.

 

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Extra: Mathblogging.org [Math]

Mathblogging.org has collected over 700 blogs and other news sources focusing on mathematics all in one place.  The goal of Mathblogging.org is to be the best place to discover mathematical writing on the web.

Sources are categorized according to a list of topics. You can see the specific topics a writer has chosen by clicking on the bubble next to each post. You can then click on those topics to find other posts on the same topic. Users can recommend posts and comment on them. You can search Mathblogging.org using keywords, and you can create a custom feed to follow using an RSS feedreader. Use the Mathblogging.org Widget to place that feed on your own site. Mathblogging.org has four Twitter feeds you can follow: Editors' Picks, Recent Posts, Notes, and the official Mathblogging.org Twitter account. You can also Like their Facebook page, or follow updates on Google+. DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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Featured: 4-24-2013 Common Core Toolkit [Curriculum]

Gerald Aungst, Supervisor of Gifted and Elementary Mathematics at School District of Cheltenham Township in Pennsylvania, is developing a Common Core Toolkit for Principals.

Since January, Aungst has been presenting a monthly four-part package of resources and activities principals can use for their own, as well as their staff's, professional development.

The parts of each package are:

1. Think: A warm up article, blog post, or video to set the stage for a faculty discussion.

2. Share: Two activities principals can use with staff members during the month in faculty or team meetings.

3. Test Drive: A key instructional practice that teachers can try out in their classrooms without expectations.

4. Explore: Links to other resources with more information for those who want to dig deeper.

Though these Common Core Toolkit for Principals packages are mainly directed towards the particular needs of Aungst's own district, others might find them useful.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

One Special Math Problem

Robin Krosinsky is a City Year New York Corps member serving at PS 154x in New York city. City Year New York corps members provide critically needed services to some of New York’s most underserved children and youth.

I recently came across a good Web post by her titled A City Education: How One Special Math Problem Each Week Boosts Achievement.

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She and her colleagues decided they wanted to take action themselves to provide entertaining and challenging math activities. In January, one of Robin's teammates, Sam, started a school-wide math initiative called the Problem of the Week.

Every week, each grade (K-5) is given a new math problem to solve. The problems are based on the math curriculum  for that grade.  They decided to make most of them word problems.

Read Robin's full post here.

Extra: Great Lessons

A teacher since 1987, Tom Sherrington is currently headteacher at King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford in Essex, UK. He writes a blog called headguruteacher.

He believes teachers need to focus on extraordinary, one-off lessons, but on things that we do every day and supports this with two related ideas:

• It is the spirit of an idea that is important, not the letter.  It isn’t about sticking to the rules. When good practice is embedded it is organic and doesn’t feel like a stuck-on activity plucked from a toolkit.
• In improving as teachers, we are not collecting tools, we [are] seeking to change our habits… the things we do automatically every day.

Sherrington is currently producing a series of short posts called Great Lessons that focus on aspects of routine practice "– because lessons can be routinely outstanding."

They can be read here:

1. Great Lessons 1: Probing (JAN 22, 2013)
2. Great Lessons 2: Rigour (JAN 27, 2013)
3. Great Lessons 3: Challenge ( JAN 31, 2013)
4. Great Lessons 4: Differentiation (FEB 3, 2013)
5. Great Lessons 5: Journeys (FEB 8, 2013)
6. Great Lessons 6: Explaining (FEB 13, 2013)

Some Things I Like: The Brilliant Blog and the Stuff You Should Know Podcast

I very much enjoy following The Brilliant Blog and the Stuff You Should Know Podcast, and find them both highly informative. I'd like to suggest that you take a look at both of them during your break.

The Brilliant Blog
Writer Annie Murphy Paul delivers the latest findings on how to learn smarter.



Annie Murphy Paul is a book author, magazine journalist, consultant and speaker who helps people understand how we learn and how we can do it better. She is a contributing writer for Time magazine and also blogs about learning for several websites. She is currently working on her next book, Brilliant: The New Science of Smart, to be published in 2013.

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The Stuff You Should Know Podcast
Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuckers" Bryant explore the Stuff You Should Know in this free podcast published by Discovery Communications via HowStuffWorks.com.



The podcast is released every Tuesday and Thursday, and covers  a wide variety of topics in a pop culture context. The podcast is available for free on the iTunes Store

COD - 8/13/2012 - Writing Forward [ELA]

Full of tips and ideas that will inspire and inform your writing projects, Writing Forward is a blog dedicated to creative writing.

Writing Forward includes posts on grammar, good writing habits and practices, and numerous writing prompts and exercises to stimulate your writing.

Among the featured topics are Better Writing, Creative Writing, Journal Writing,and Writing Exercises, Prompts, Tips, Ideas, and Resources.

The mission of Writing Forward is "to share helpful and inspiring creative writing tips to benefit the greater writing community and to advocate on behalf of all writers and artists."

The winner of several honors and awards, Writing Forward launched in September of 2007, and is sustained by Melissa Donovan, the author of 101 Creative Writing Exercises.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

COD - 5/16/2012 - TeacherCast [Resources]

TeacherCast is a broad-ranging online resource created by a classroom teacher for teachers. Educators will find podcasts, app reviews, videos, a career center, and much more.

Some of what teachers can do at TeacherCast:

• Listen to the TeacherCast Podcast, a weekly round table show featuring real teachers.
• Find the perfect app with over 100 app reviews to help you choose the best materials for your classroom.
• Watch video tutorials demonstrating todays best apps and web applications.
• Read great articles written by educators about todays hot topics.
• Use the TeacherCast Career Center to search for and post a job.
• Subscribe to The TeacherCast Newsletter.

A free iPhone and iPad app lets you take TeacherCast with you on the go.

In the summer of 2011, Jeff Bradbury created TeacherCast.net to help his fellow teachers learn about the latest technologies available for education. Jeff teaches in the North Brunswick Twp School District.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0 

Subscribe to EDge21 and Always be Up-to-Date [RSS]

The best way to follow EDge21 and always know what new items have posted is to subscribe to the EDge21 RSS feed.

This is the EDge21 feed address that you would add to your favorite RSS feed reader:http://cffmv.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

 

The most popular way to follow RSS feeds is with Google Reader. Here are the steps to manually subscribe to a feed in Reader:

1. Click the Subscribe button in your left-hand sidebar

2. Enter the EDge21 RSS feed URL: http://cffmv.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Once you've subscribed to the feed, you'll see the number of new or unread items in parentheses next to the feed's title. Clicking on the feed's title will display the contents of the feed in your primary window.

 

Catch of the Day - Minigroup - 7/11/2011

Calgary-based Minigroup is a completely private blogging platform that lets you share "the right stuff with the right people." Members can share messages, links, images, audio, video, documents, and more.

Minigroup is not visible to search engines. And, since every group is hidden from people who aren’t members, there will be no intrusions from strangers, friends-of-friends, and so on.

Use multiple custom Minigroup identities to share appropriate personal information with various groups from a single account. Show different sides of yourself to different groups.

Take a video tour of Minigroup

Minigroup is currently in public beta. Consequently, there may be occasional bugs. The developers promise a long list of features to come.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Helping Our Schools - /2011

Helping Our Schools is a blog by Bruce Brown intended to help teachers acquire resource materials through grants, funding, and donations.

Brown has been developing and publishing supplemental educational materials for more than 30 years.  He has started working with schools to identify grants and a variety of non-government funding sources to help teachers acquire resources for their classrooms. He launched Helping Our Schools as a central repository for that information.

Categories

• General
• Grants and Funding Ongoing
• Resource Material Donations Available

Grant information is posted on a regular basis. Some grants are on-going, others operate on specific timelines. Donated materials from publishers are listed along with contact information as they become available.

The Helping Our SchoolsWish List enables teachers to make requests for needed classroom materials that may be supplied by a donor.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

The EDge21 Blog Book - Free Download

I've compiled a full year of EDge21 blog posts in a PDF eBook that you can download for free.

The First Edition of the EDge21 Blog Book collects all the posts from October 1, 2009, through September 30, 2010. All the hyperlinks are included.

And, it's FREE.

This eBook was made with BlogBooker.

Catch of the Day - Googlio - 9/28/2010

Googlio is a free portfolio webspace created by mashing up blog, wiki, social networking, and other Google web tools for students and teachers to collect, publish, reflect, and connect digitally.

Googlios brings together free Google tools and ePortfolios. It is meant to be a collection of resources for using ePortfolios in education.

Watch a video introduction to Googlio

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Google Reader in Internet Explorer

Learn how to use the Google Reader Subscribe... bookmarklet to add RSS feed subscriptions in Internet Explorer 7/8.
Google Reader Subscriptions in IE7/8

Catch of the Day - Lessonopoly - Jul 12, 2010

Lessonopoly is a free website designed to facilitate teachers organization of activities both in and out of the classroom, creation and sharing of lesson plans, and connecting to other teachers in online communities.

Started in 2007, Lessonopoly was developed by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation which works across all 33 school districts in Santa Clara County (CA) to ensure public schools have the resources and expertise they need.

Lessonopoly was created and refined with input from teachers and strives to deliver a set of effective and easy-to-use, easy-to-learn tools for teachers.

 

Classroom tools available to registered teachers are a planning calendar, a personal lesson plan library, and a blogging tool. Resources to connect with other teachers include groups and a wiki tool.

Browse or search the thousands of available lesson plans by subject or grade level. You can even submit your own lesson plans to the Lessonopoly library.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Major Upgrade For Kidblog.org

I recently posted about Kidblog.org and I learned today that it has just had a major upgrade.

The Kidblog development team has spent the past two months working to bring you the most significant upgrade in Kidblog’s history. The upgrade is now official, and you and your students will notice the new features immediately.

Click here to read about the new features.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Kidblog.org - 18 Mar 10

The catch of today is Kidblog.org, blogging for pre-high school students

Kidblog.org is designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each of their students a unique, safe blog of their own.

Kidblog.org Home Page

Kidblog.org is designed and built by teachers so students can get the most out of the blogging experience. Kidblog.org provides a safe and simple blogging platform suitable for elementary and middle school students. Teachers can monitor and control all publishing activity within the classroom blog.

Create a Class Blog
Kidblog.com has privacy features that put student safety first. Teachers have administrative control over all student blogs and student accounts. By default, students' blogs are private - viewable only by classmates and the teacher. Comment privacy settings block unsolicited comments from outside sources.

Semi-public blogs requiring a password to view students' posts and comments can be set up so that guests, parents for example, can have access.

Kidblog.com is simple...

• No need to memorize usernames, simple login menus allow students to select their name from a list.
• Clutter-free design means more time publishing.
• Easy for students to find classmates' blogs.

Kidblog.org does not collect any personal information from teachers or students. Nor does it include advertising of any kind.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

EDge21 Now Mobile Optimized!

EDge21 now has a mobile-optimized version!

Using the free Google Mobilizer, I can now make a version of EDge21 available optimized for your mobile device's browser. Get all the same content, including images, reformatted for a small screen.

Use this link to get to EDge21 mobile, then bookmark it in your device's browser.

If you have problems accessing EDge21 on your device, please leave a comment. I'll see what I can do.

Catch of the Day - Internet4Classrooms - 20 Aug 09

Today, we feature the internet education portal Internet4Classrooms.

Internet4Classrooms grew from a collaborative effort by Susan Brooks and Bill Byles to extend assistance to fellow teachers. In November of 2000 that project became what is now known as Internet4Classrooms, a free web portal designed to aid anyone who wants to find free, high-quality internet resources to use in classroom instruction, developing project ideas, reinforcing specific subject areas, and even for online technology tutorials. Internet4Classrooms is used by teachers, parents and students of all ages around the world and is available free to anyone with an internet connection.

Internet4Classrooms offers ...

Grade level help for K-8
Standards based links and our grade level Skillbuilders to help students practice what they have been taught.

Links for K-12
Several large collections of links for K-12 teachers, students and parents.

On-Line Practice Modules
Step-by-step technology tutorials for learning common applications used in K-12 classrooms.

Daily Dose of the Web
Web sites which provide new content on a daily or weekly basis.

Assessment Assistance
Help your students prepare for annual assessments, standardized tests, and end of course exams.

On-Site Training for Teachers
Technology utilization and integration support sessions lead by the founders of Internet4Classrooms.

Internet4Classrooms invites you to reach out to them through email, by posting to their blog, or using Twitter. They will answer requests for help, concerns, or anything you want to write about. Internet4Classrooms is using social networking so that they can share their answers with other users who may have similar questions.