Good teaching derives from the heart and an open mind. With that being said, technology can offer us avenues for enhancing and differentiating our instruction.Collaboration & Communication Tools:
- How-to use Google Apps
- SMARTBOARD Exchange ~ find great interactive whiteboard lessons for any grade level, any subject
- Mimeo Connect ~ find great interactive whiteboard lessons for any grade level, any subject
- Dropbox ~ store and share all of your files on the web
- Edmodo ~ share, organize and collaborate Google Docs (has a facebook-like interface)
- Prezi~ a web-based site to create fancy, interactive PowerPoints
- Glogster~ web-based interactive posters
- Voki ~ students can create avatars for fictional and historical characters. Great for book projects!
- Storywheel~ K-2 students can pick story elements and then take turns reading
- Animoto ~ web-based video editing
- ePub~ online book publishing program
- Morgue File ~ free and safe photos for students to use in multimedia projects
- GIMP: Image Editor
- Smile Box ~edit/enhance photos and create fun slide shows for your classroom blog
- Scratch
- Typing Skills ~ Dance Map Typing for grade K-5
- Wolfram Alpha ~ research anything!
- QuestGarden ~create WebQuests for your interdisciplinary units
- Go Animate ~ create and view videos
- Whole Brain Teaching ~ explore Chris Biffle's effective classroom management strategies
- Pinterest ~ a great way to be quickly inspired, link to interesting classroom blogs and get the skinny on the latest educational research trends. You will find many ideas for your house and home too! :)
- Book Wizard~ use Scholastic's Book Wizard to label and organize your classroom library according to grade level, DRA, Lexile or Guided Reading levels as well as genre and common interest levels
- Read-Write-Think ~great resouce of Writer's and Reader's Workshops
- Archive.org ~ view archived websites to see how much media culture has changed over time
- Book Adventure ~students can earn points every time they read a new book
- Book Spot ~book reviews and research
- Teenreads ~dedicated to teen readers
- GuysRead ~ amazing website for boy readers
- National Poetry ~spotlight on poetry
- Reading Rockets ~ a great tool-kit for all L.A. teachers
- Daily 5 & Cafe ~ fabulous strategies for teaching reading K-5 from 2 experienced educators
- Don't Buy It! and Advertising ThinkQuest~ Students can become objective viewers of advertisement and media. I use this with my students when they are advertising and persuading others to buy their inventions.
- Use ACME.com to teach students how to become media smart!
- Secret Stories ~ brain-based approaches to teaching phonics and reading to K-3 students as well as struggling intermediate students. Follow Katie Garner's Pinterest page for teaching videos
- PBS Kids Reading
- Reader's Workshop Mini-lessons
- ABCya! Games ~ reading and math games
- Games to Practice Sight Words
- Spelling Games
- Investigations Smartboard/Mimeo lessons ~provides interactive components of every Investigations Math lesson on your interactive whiteboard (need a subscription)
- Khan Academy ~ lessons, videos and practice for math and consumer science
- Manga High ~ robust CCSS lessons and games for grades 3-6 (some games are like video games)
- Virual Math Manipulatives
- Starfall Math games ~ great for K-1
- PhET Science Simulations
- Thinking Blocks ~ great for conceptual, orderly thinking. Tasks are very similar to the (SBAC) Smarter Balance sample item tasks
- Wolfram Alpha ~shows many different mathematical representations
- Figure This! ~ created by NCTM to provide math challenges for families
- PARCC Games ~ math K-6 and reading K-3 that are similar to the PARCC and SBAC assessment item tasks
- FunBrain ~math games
- School Library Journal
- Are your students obsessed with the game Mindcraft? Check out this SLJ article.
- The Truth about Tablets
- Kindle vs Nook Tablet
- Have you heard of Nature Deficit Disorder? Check out this New York Times article and NDD Education.com for ideas to get our students off their screens and outside!
- Edutopia ~ check out this article about incorporating ipads in the classroom
- Byrdseed ~ great GT site
- Dangerously Irrelevant
- Free Tech 4 Teachers
- Inside the Classroom ~ 2nd grade blog
- Science Teacher
- The Line
- The Tempered Radical
- Mr. C's Blogspot ~ 6th grade
- Fairview's P.E. blog ~ P.E K-8
- Digital Storytelling blog
- American Library Association
- ASCD website ~ offers great articles about digital media. Check out the recent article: Students First, Not Stuff by Will Richardson. A membership is worthwhile but there are many free online articles and resources.
- NCTM website ~ looking for ways to integrate the CCSS into your Investigations Math curriculum? Download this article detailing the steps districts, administrators and educators must take in order to incorporate the CCSS.
- Need Assistive Technology for students? Check out this article from PBS and co-writer.
- Smarter Balance Assessment (SBAC)~ scroll down for sample task items and click links to the right for "fast facts" downloads
- Common Core State Standards Math & ELA Standards
- International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) ~ resources and online technology courses for grade-level spans
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| Do you ever feel like this? |
- Technology is forever changing. ISTE developed a set of standards (NETS) to help guide students and support educators through an evolving future.
- (NETS*S) NETS for Students
- (NETS*T) NETS for Teachers
- (NETS*C) NETS for Tech Coaches
- (NETS*A) NETS for Administrators
- Vermont Technology Grade Level Expectations based on NETS*S
