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

Featured: 5-30-2013 The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning [Reference]

The Teacher's Guides To
Technology And Learning 

The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning by Edudemic are intended to offer teachers some of the best and most popular resources currently available.

In creating The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning, Edudemic has explored hundreds of resources in order to make their guides easy to read, use, and share.

The Teacher’s Guide To Flipped Classrooms

Because the flipped classroom is one of the most sought-after topics in terms of questions on social media, search queries, and more, Edudemic thought it would be useful to organize all of their many resources into one easy-to-use guide. It’s a curated list of many of the most useful flipped classroom resources.

The Teacher’s Guide To Copyright And Fair Use

Teaching students about copyright and fair use involves more than just telling them that they should be doing their own work, and not copying off the web. Plagiarism and copyright violations are significant issues in the classroom.

The Teacher’s Guide To The Library Of Congress

The Library of Congress is an incredible resource for teachers. The largest library in the world, it’s home to millions of books, recordings, photographs, and other materials, many of them original sources. This guide, written for teachers and education in general, promises to be an easy and solid resource to refer back to as needed.

 

The Teacher’s Guide To Choosing The Best Digital Content

Blended learning is becoming a noteworthy trend in education technology as teachers realize technology alone isn’t the 'magic bullet' of education. A blended learning environment means  mixing technology with standard teaching practices in order to enhance education.

Other available guides:

• The Teacher’s Guide To Twitter
• The Teacher’s Guide To Digital Scavenger Hunts
• The Teacher’s Guide To Pinterest In The Classroom
• The Teacher’s Guide To Keeping Students Safe Online
• The Teacher’s Guide To Badges In Education
• The Teacher’s Guide To Google Glass

The Teacher's Guides To Technology And Learning are always a work in progress. The current guides are always being updated and refreshed, and new guides are being developed.

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.

*

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.

COD - 6/13/2012 - ClassroomWindow [Sharing]

ClassroomWindow is based on a simple premise: teachers are the real experts and no one knows better than they do what works – or doesn’t work – in the classroom.

ClassroomWindow is a place where teachers' voices can be heard by publishers, product developers, and district decision makers. Teachers may share their expert opinions about the books, curricula, and tools they use daily.

ClassroomWindow taps the practical experience of potentially millions of educators working with classroom products on a daily basis, combining the breadth of crowd-sourcing with the depth of expert analysis and evaluation, finally allowing purchase decisions to be made based only on the effectiveness of educational products and services.

ClassroomWindow hopes the transparency created via their site will heighten competition among education vendors, leading to more effective products that better meet the needs of today’s classroom.

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

Good to Know - Information About Managing Your Online Life

Good to Know is a site from Google with useful information about managing your online life.

There are four main areas of information on Good to Know:

• Stay safe online ... tips and advice for staying more secure on the web
• Your data on the web … how it makes websites more useful
• Your data on Google … how it makes Google services more useful
• Manage your data … what you share with Google and other websites

Learn about phishing, malware, mobile security, cookies, IP addresses, and more. You can also find out about Google's five privacy principles that describe their approach to user privacy and information across all of their products. Link to Google's collection of privacy tools.

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

Catch of The Day - Calcblog - 11/10/2011

 

Learn to use graphing, scientific, and financial calculators more effectively with useful tips and tutorials from Calcblog.

Calcblog covers many calculator topics for students, educators, and working professionals, including basic math, calculus, finance, statistics, and data analysis. Students can also prep for such standardized tests as the SAT, GRE, and GMAT.

There are tutorials and tips in the following categories:

• TI-83 Plus
• TI-84 Plus
• TI-89
• TI-92 Plus
• Algebra
• Calculus
• Statistics

One of Calcblog’s primary goals is to be a resource for educators. There are many tips and suggestions for teachers on how to use the Calcblog website as a teaching tool.

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

 

Restoring Safari 5.0 in Snow Leopard Made Easy

Safari has been my browser of choice for quite some time now. I recently upgraded to Safari 5.1 even though I'm still running OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) on both my MacBook and iMac, and expect to continue this way for a bit. I use the Glims plugin for Safari which adds a bunch of really useful features to Safari, my favorites being address bar searching with keywords and adding additional search engines in the search box.

Unfortunately, some of the Glims plugin features were broken by the upgrade. Furthermore, I was having issues with Safari 5.1 seemingly leaking memory and beach-balling quite a lot after extended browsing.

Today I found this really simple (so long as you're comfortable with using Terminal) method for restoring Safari back to version 5.0.5 at Mac OS X Hints. I tried it and it seems to have worked fine. All the Glims features appear to be back and functioning.

 

Catch of the Day - QR Codes - 2/21/2011

 

Are QR Codes the Next Big Thing? I see a lot of questions in my Twitter stream on this subject. Rather than spotlight a specific website or product, the Catch of the Day is a little different today. I'm going to try to provide some information and answers about QR codes.

A QR Code is a two-dimensional graphic code, readable by QR code readers, often using mobile phones. The code consists of tiny black squares arranged in a square pattern on a white background. Information such as text, a URL, or other data can be encoded in a QR code image.

Scanning this image will display the above paragraph on your phone.

QR (Quick Response) codes originated in Japan where they are very common. They initially were used to track parts in vehicle manufacturing. They are now used to take information from an impermanent media, such as a magazine, a sign, a label, or a a poster and move it on to your mobile phone. Once the QR code is on your phone, you may see textual information displayed, be linked to a URL, or import vCard contact info directly into your phones address book.

QR codes can store and digitally present much more data (including URLs, GPS coordinates, text, etc) than a standard one-dimensional barcode. Another advantage of QR codes is that instead of requiring a dedicated hand-held scanner to read them, many mobile phones can scan and read them inherently or with free third-party apps.

On my iPhone, I use I-nigma as well as ATTScanner, and ShopSavvy (all free in the iTunes app store) to read QR codes. A list of QR code readers for the iPhone can be found here. For other phones try this list.

The use of QR codes is free of any license and anyone can visit any of several free QR code generating sites to create and print their own QR codes for others to scan and use.

Free online QR code generators: QRnote, Kaywa, Delivr, GOQR.ME

The use of QR codes in the educational community is in its infancy, but growing here are a few sources of ideas for using QR codes in the classroom:

• huffenglish.com
• 38 Interesting Ways* to Use QR Codes in the Classroom
• The use of QR codes in Education: A getting started guide for academics

If you have a novel use for QR codes in your classroom or school, please note it and share it in the comments.

Sources:

Wikipedia entry "QR codes", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code

Marc Lyne, What Is A QR Code And Why Do You Need One?, Oct 15, 2009, http://searchengineland.com/what-is-a-qr-code-and-why-do-you-need-one-27588

 

Catch of the Day - Science Buddies - Jul 13, 2010

Science Buddies provides a free venue where K-12 students, teachers, and parents can find project ideas as well as help in all science topics.

Science Buddies provides fun, intellectually-stimulating, cutting-edge science education resources such as …

• An online library of nearly a thousand detailed, scientist-authored outlines of project ideas
• The Project Guide, an online how-to guide for science research and science fair projects
• The Topic Selection Wizard helps students find a project idea
• Ask an Expert, an advice forum where scientists and engineers guide students who are doing science and engineering projects
• Career Profiles to inform students about science, technology, engineering, and math careers

If your goal is to find a fun science activity for your kids or to win the state science fair, Science Buddies quickly and easily gives you access to an abundance of tools, tips, and techniques.

Among Science Buddies' rich collection of Teacher Resources you'll find …

• Teacher's Guide to Science Projects
• A Guide to Planning a Science Fair
• Science Fair Schedule Worksheet
• Science Fair Project Grading Rubrics
• Science Project Enrichment Tools

It's free to join Science Buddies. With membership, you will receive new project ideas, news about science competitions, science fair tips, and other science-related information.

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

Search the Way You Want It

Did you know that you can customize the search engines available from the search box in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari? It's a fairly easy job to add searches from almost any site you want to each of these browsers.

Each browser has a somewhat unique way of accomplishing this. In each case, you'll need to download and install a free browser add-on or extension.

Firefox

For Firefox, install the Add to Search Box 2.0 add-on.

Download it here

Adding search options in Firefox is the simplest. After installing the add-on (and restarting Firefox), just navigate to the site whose search you want to add and right-click in the site's search box. Choose Add to Search Bar…

In the dialog box, name the search and assign a keyword (optional), click OK.

You can disable the Add to Search Bar add-on after you've added the desired search tools.

For both Chrome and Safari, you need to first visit the site whose search you want to add and do a simple search. Copy the resulting URL from the address bar.

Chrome

Install Chrome'sSearch Box extension.

Download it here

Click Search Box's magnifying glass toolbar button, then click Manage Search Engines…

At the bottom of the window enter a name for the item and paste the copied search URL. Before you click Add, replace the search term (peach in this example) in the URL with %s

See an alternative Chrome method here.

Safari

For Safari, you'll need the Glims plug-in installed.

Download it here

Safari works in a similar way to Chrome. Open Safari'sPreferences and click the Glims icon in the toolbar. Select Search Engines from the menu. Click the Add button.

Enter a name, replace the sample URL with the copied search URL. Before you click the Add button, replace the search term (peach) with the query placeholder .

Add a keyword if you like.

The Glims plug-in also gives you access to a lot of other tools for customizing Safari.

Catch of the Day - Bookmarklets: Enhance Your Browser - May 17, 2010

Bookmarklets are simple free tools that extend the capabilities of web browsers. The term bookmarklet is a combination of the words bookmark and applet. Bookmarklets work in virtually any JavaScript-enabled browser and on any platform (Windows, Mac, etc). You do not have to download or install any additional software to use bookmarklets.

Bookmarklets are tiny JavaScript programs stored as bookmarks. Bookmarklets have access to the current page. Consequently, they can be simple "one-click" tools which add functionality to your browser, in the same manner as the typical browser add-on/extension.

You often have the choice of using either a browser-specific add-on/extension or a bookmarklet to perform the same function. In such cases, because I use multiple browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and IE) on both Mac and Windows machines, I almost always opt for the bookmarklet. Syncing bookmarks across my browsers (using Xmarks) means that once I've added a bookmarklet in any one browser, I now have access to that functionality in all my browsers. I don't have to try to locate add-ons for each browser (if any even exist) and install them individually.

Typically, a bookmarklet won't lose it's ability to function if your browser upgrades as can sometimes happen with add-ons. Adding a bookmarklet won't require a browser restart, either. Bookmarklets have a negligible effect on your browser's memory use since they are only executed on demand.

Bookmarklets are typically installed by dragging the bookmarklet onto your browser's link toolbar or by right-clicking the link, then clicking the bookmark option.

Here are links to some popular bookmarklets you might find useful ...

• bit.ly
• is.gd!
• Instapaper
• Read It Later
• Readability
• LiveBinders
• Sqworl
• Evernote
• Google Notebook
• Delicious
• Diigo
• Tumblr
• Blog This! (Blogger)

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bookmarklets available for many uses. You might like to visit Collection of Google Bookmarklets for bookmarklets related to a number of Google services.

Simple Tips for Clearing Your Inbox

I hear so many teachers in our district complain about being overwhelmed with email. Just one peek at their inboxes and I see why. Virtually every piece of email they receive stays in the inbox until they just arbitrarily delete everything (both important and trivial) out of frustration.

And finding a particular email is an agonizing exercise in scrolling through dozens, maybe hundreds, of messages cluttering the inbox.

Today, I put together this tip sheet for those teachers. Apart from the unique technical how-to's specific to our less than state-of-the-art email system, the tips could be used by anyone who finds himself email-challenged.
Managing Your MV Webmail

A Classroom Idea for Using an iPod Touch

Yesterday, as I observed a sixth grade teacher, I had one of those simple ideas that sometimes flash into your consciousness from out of the proverbial blue.

The teacher posed a question to his class that called for a short one or two word response. He told his class to write the answer on paper and he circulated through the class looking at their answers.

I had my iPhone in my hand taking observation notes. Suddenly, I thought, "If each kid had an iPod Touch and the Marquee app, they could all enter their answers, hold up the Touch, and the teacher could quickly scan everyone's responses."

For those of you unfamiliar with Marquee, it lets you write your own message, choose the font, the background and text colors, the speed and style by which the message will scroll or flash on your iPod Touch screen. Then hold the screen up towards the person you want to see the message, and let them read it from across the room.

This isn't going to change the course of education in the 21st century, but it makes an efficient and simple use of new technology.

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Quick References from Custom Guides

FREE Quick References from Custom Guides

Here are some ways you can use them:

• Distribute them at your school.
• Forward them to users with support issues.
• Post them on your IT department's website.

These guides are in PDF format and can be easily downloaded and printed. Most of the listed applications have guides for previous as well as current versions of the app.

Microsoft:
Access, Excel (W/M), FrontPage, Explorer, InfoPath, Office, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint (W/M), Project, Publisher, SharePoint, Visio, Windows, Word (W/M)

Mac:
Appleworks, Mac OS, Entourage

Adobe:
Acrobat, Dreamweaver (W/M), Fireworks (W/M), Flash (W/M), Photoshop (W/M), PS Elements

Others:
Lotus Notes, QuickBooks, Firefox

Top Ten Things Beginning Teachers Need to Understand

Image via Wikipedia

I read these tips from the series Empowering the Beginning Teacher in Mathematics, by Cynthia Thomas and felt that they were very worth sharing. Many beginning teachers have been convinced that if they try hard enough, everything will be wonderful. It simply isn't so. Kids are shaped and affected by a multitude of things which are far outside the ability of any teacher to totally overcome. You do the best you can.

10. Not every student will be interested every minute. No matter how much experience you have or how great you are at teaching, you will encounter times in the classroom when no student is interested! The solution is to change your tone of voice, move around the room, or switch from lecturing to some other activity. Maybe you can even use a manipulative to increase the students’ understanding and, possibly, their level of interest.

9. If a lesson is going badly, stop. Even if you have planned a lesson and have a clear goal in mind, if your approach is not working—for whatever reason—stop! Regroup and start over with a different approach, or abandon your planned lesson entirely and go on to something else. At the end of the day, be honest with yourself as you examine what went wrong and make plans for the next day.

8. Teaching will get easier. Maybe not tomorrow or even next week, but at some point in the year, your job will get easier! Try to remember your first day in the classroom. Were you nervous? Of course; all of us were. See how much better you are as a teacher already? By next year, you will be able to look back on today and be amazed at how much you have learned and how much easier so many aspects of teaching are!

7. You do not have to volunteer for everything. Do not feel that you always have to say yes each time you are asked to participate. Know your limits. Practice saying, “Thank you for thinking of me, but I do not have the time to do a good job with another task right now.” Of course, you must accept your responsibility as a professional and do your fair share, but remember to be realistic about your limits.

6. Not every student or parent will love you. And you will not love every one of them, either! Those feelings are perfectly acceptable. We teachers are not hired to love students and their parents; our job is to teach students and, at times, their parents as well. Students do not need a friend who is your age; they need a facilitator, a guide, a role model for learning.

5. You cannot be creative in every lesson. In your career, you will be creative, but for those subjects that do not inspire you, you can turn to other resources for help. Textbooks, teaching guides, and professional organizations, such as NCTM, are designed to support you in generating well-developed lessons for use in the classroom. When you do feel creative and come up with an effective and enjoyable lesson, be sure to share your ideas with other teachers, both veterans and newcomers to the profession.

4. No one can manage portfolios, projects, journals, creative writing, and student self-assessment all at the same time and stay sane! The task of assessing all these assignments is totally unreasonable to expect of yourself as a beginning teacher. If you want to incorporate these types of exercises into your teaching, pick one for this year and make it a priority in your classroom. Then, next year or even the year after that, when you are comfortable with the one extra assignment you picked, you can incorporate another innovation into your teaching.

3. Some days you will cry, but the good news is, some days you will laugh! Learn to laugh with your students and at yourself!

2. You will make mistakes. You cannot undo your mistakes, but berating yourself for them is counterproductive. If the mistake requires an apology, make it and move on. No one is keeping score.

1. This is the best job on earth! Stand up straight! Hold your head high! Look people in the eye and proudly announce, “I am a teacher!”

I Need That File I Worked on Today!

We've all been at that place at one time or another where you want to finish that presentation you worked on for hours, but it's on the computer at school, or on the network server. You can't get at it until Monday and you had planned on using it first period Monday.

In your own best interest, you need to learn about and use cloud computing. Keep your work in the "cloud" so it will be accessible anywhere, anytime you have any computer with internet access. Cloud computing is a concept that embraces software as a service, Web 2.0, and data storage in servers on the Internet which is then cached locally.

One way you can leverage the cloud is by using one of a number of web-based office-style application suites such as Google Docs or Zoho. These applications allow you work entirely online and your documents are automatically stored in the host's servers. Both of these applications, as well as some others, also allow for offline editing of your documents when you don't have Internet access.

Another implementation of the cloud is to use one of the numerous online storage solutions such as Box.net, DivShare, Dropboks, and others. Most of these services offer free accounts of up 5 Gb of storage. All allow you to upload, store, share, open, and download most file types. All are relatively easy to use, most have the appearance of an ordinary desktop file system.

My practice is to store most files in at least two different locations. I will usually store a copy locally on my computer's hard drive or an external drive. I will also store those files in an online server. Personally, I have chosen Box.net for personal use and DivShare for CFF use.

If you want to get your feet wet with online storage, MV Webmail includes a Filestore with limited storage of about 70 Mb. I have put together a tutorial on using MV Webmail's Filestore on the CFF/MV Wiki.

Listen to this article ....

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Tips for Your Tech-integrated Classroom

Image via Wikipedia Here are three great ideas using a wiki and engaging students in your online classroom.

• Have students use the wiki to track background research for term papers, and you will gain insight into the project at the beginning.
• Use the wiki to post lecture notes and handouts to keep your class organized.
• Ask your students to post exam questions and respond to questions from their peers. Use these questions in your exam.

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Getting Things Done: Using Your MV Webmail Account to Manage Your To Do List

Most of us have more things to get accomplished than we can keep track of. I find that a useful to do list is invaluable to keeping me on track. A solution that helps me stay on top of my CFF tasks is a simple to do list tied into my MV Webmail account. I can add tasks to the list from anywhere I can access email, even from my mobile phone or iPod.

There are three steps to getting this kind of Webmail to do list up and running: create a special folder for your to do items, make a filter to sort your to do list tasks from your other mail and send them into your to do list folder, and inserting a flag into the subject line of the emails.

1) Create a special folder for your to do items.

On the Webmail toolbar, click the Folders icon.

Next, name your to do folder, in this example I used the name ToDo List, then click the Create button.

Now a folder with that name should appear in the folder list below.

2) Make a filter to sort your to do list tasks from your other mail and send them into your ToDo List folder

On the Webmail toolbar, click the Options icon.

From the available options, select Filters and Exceptions

You now have four things to do in the window that appears:

1. From the drop-down menu next to If the, choose Subject
2. Following Subject header contains, type 2DO:
3. Choose move from the menu beside then
4. and choose ToDo List from the menu next to IMAP folder

Then click the Add button and the filter you just made should appear in the list.

3) Insert a 'flag' into the subject line of the emails that contain your to do list items.

When you need to add a task to your to do list, compose an email to yourself. In the subject line you MUST include the 'flag' that will send this to your to do list folder. That 'flag' is 2DO:. Also on the subject line, include a brief description of the task. If you wish, you may include more detail about the task in the body of the message.

That email should now be channeled into your ToDo List folder. Select that folder and you should see a list of your tasks.

You might want to add a priority number to the subject line, or due date, or whatever else you like. Delete the tasks as they are completed. Hope this helps you better manage your workload.

© 2008 Thomas Boito