Tech Resources (You Tube)

Hey all. We are nearly ready to get Thinking Thursdays off to its initial post in the 2013-2014 season. I came across this collection of YouTube resources on an A.A.E. website that may be of interest to you. They are specific channels with focus. Check them out on these links. You may find a new one that just hits the spot for your classroom.

Khan Academy – Belongs at the top of every list, covers nearly every topic at every level, and is informative and entertaining - a ‘must’ for flipped classrooms!

Discovery Channel – Science, nature, and history clips from their mainstream television channel.

Biography Channel – Mini bios and ‘on this day’ for a short intro to a social studies topic.

Smithsonian Channel – Engaging and informing short videos on science and history, as well as videos that take you behind the scenes of Smithsonian institutions.

Library of Congress – A little something for everyone, from long talks about different books to illustrated books and videos about library and information science.

National Geographic Channel - Features clips from their geography, history, and science themed cable channel.

Channel One News - Features clips from their daily TV show offered free to schools across the country.  Clips often focus on current events or broadening students’ awareness of social, political, and world issues.

Periodic Table of Videos - Science videos any chemistry teacher will love.

Schmoop - Hundreds of humorous and informative videos, designed with students in mind and on covering every topic imaginable.

Crash Course - Like Schmoop, this channel covers every topic imaginable in an attempt to explain the complicated in short, easy to understand videos.

Your Discovery Literacy Leaders

Blogger (BlogSpot.com)

Today is a short glimpse of Blogger. There are a ton of blog tools out there including the one provided by PHM. I never got used to that blog and elected to go to a third party host for quite a few years. Last year I made the leap and after much hesitation switched to Blogger (blogspot.com). The primary reason was that it looks good, is free, and is very easy to use, unlike PHM's. Our clients are acustomed to communication on a regular basis so a simple blog is a very good tool. Below is a quick guide to getting started on Blogger.

Setting up Blogger Guide

On another note, Jennifer and I tried out Electric Slide on our parents during open house. A simple free download from iTunes and we were up and running. It worked flawlessly and consequently we looked like pros. Check it out for ios devices.


Electric Slide
Devices: ios (Apple)
Price: Free Version
Vendor: iTunes









Your Discovery Literacy Leaders

Welcome Back to a New Season

Greetings all. In thinking about Edmodo and why I use it in my classroom I came across this short YouTube clip on just the subject. Check it out.

Your Discovery Literacy Leaders

Twitter

No, in the title of this post I am not calling anyone a "twit." After having a few conversations with my colleagues and suggesting they join the Twitter-verse I thought I would post a bit about Twitter and some ways in which I use it.  First off I will say that I don't like FaceBook and Twitter is not even close to that. By the way, I faithfully check my FaceBook page ever few months or so. Twitter is basically a social network, similar to FaceBook, but is limited to 160 characters or less. I can scan through my time line and take as much or as little time as I want. It is easier to view on a smart phone but may be accessed with ease on any computer with Internet access. Maybe easier is not truthful. It is handier because I can check anytime anyplace in just a few moments. In fact, I started my account before I had a smart phone and you can read, post, and do anything on a computer.

So, you say "Why would I or do I need to look at a social network as an educator?" I am not an avid tweeter but love to read them. After two plus years on Twitter I have only 626 tweets (of this writing), follow 86 people, and have 27 disciples. I mean followers :). A real Twitter Hound has 12,250 tweets in that time. But, I digress. Actually, I do like reading things the people I follow have to say but mostly I enjoy reading about the latest and greatest technology innovations connected to education. After scanning the less than 160 characters or less many times the Tweeter will include a link to a picture, article, or other media source tied into the tweet. You can access their link or just move right on to the next one.

A warning to you all that Twitter is an unfiltered outlet and people let all things fly with no real consequences. Professional people follow a decorum appropriate for their station. Remember, your disciples (followers) are reading. And, any tweet may be re tweeted, copied, emailed, favorit-ed, and somehow resent in many ways.

The bottom line for me is that I can follow my friends, mostly my own children's friends, my own children, and any professional people from Major League Baseball players, news outlets, teacher types, and many more. The teacher types have been my largest source for ideas including Edmodo and other technology themes. 

I don't even come close to being the guru of Twitter in fact a few of our own Discovery progessionals are way better versed and use it more but here is a list of some of my follows in education. I am only listing the professionals outside of Discovery Middle School:

@21st Century Tech
@osxdaily
@edmodo
@thestateoftech
@timbuckteeth
@kylepace
@WeAreTeachers
@rmbyrne
@edutopia
@tomwhitby
@NMHS_Principal
@Larryferlazzo
@web20classroom
@ShellTerrell
@FractustLearning
@flippedclass
@DelilaBush
@HistoryandTech
@edtech
@MacTrast
@BreakingNews
@WSJ

I follow a few more but kept this list to education and a couple of news outlets. I typically find out news events from Twitter way before the TV news carries it. Caution! it may not be true. Check it out first.

Code:
@ - At (Everyone's address starts with this)
# - Hashtag (A way to sort topics)
Arrow - Reply to
Two Arrows in a box - Retweet
Star - Favorite
Three bullet points - more ways to share
I won't even get into Twitter Speak. I hate it as it butchers the English language and you all know the English Language is my specialty.

Ok, enough for now. If you have any questions or even read this rant, give my a holler. And, by the way, Twitter is free for the taking.

Your Discovery Literacy Leaders

New Thinking Thursdays Sessions - Announcement

Thinking Thursdays is back in business. The next offerings will be on May 9th and May 23rd. The technology topic will be Google Drive (Docs) per staff survey. We will explore setup-settings, making and organizing folders, sharing, passwords, form creation, and more. If Google Docs is a new to you, don't worry, we will start at the beginning. If you are an expert, don't worry, you are needed.

Kathy Burnette will be our "Featured Presenter" for both sessions.

Hope to see you all there,

Your Discovery Literacy Leaders

Vocabulary Help!!

Hey all,
It has been some time since Thinking Thursdays has been engaged. Today, on Twitter, I came across a list of vocabulary sites to assist students. I am including them here. Sorry about the background white. I have not personally used these sites but they are all "live" and may fit a need. They range through all grade levels.

I did find Vocabgrabber quite interesting as you copy paste a document and it pulls out possible vocabulary terms from that document or paste. You can check them out. Maybe, you could post a comment on any you find useful.

Flashcard Stash- registered teachers create vocab flashcards and can share with their students

Free Rice- each correct answer generates a donation of 10 grains of rice through the World Food Programme.

Graph Words- online visual thesaurus

Knoword- helps boost vocabulary and spelling

Learning Chocolate- vocabulary learning platform includes a huge array of interactive lessons

Learning Vocabulary Fun-vocabulary games, English vocabulary word games, including Slang Game, Hang Mouse and Letter Games

MyVocabulary.com- root word lesson plans, puzzles, word lists and SAT/ACT test prep

PBS Kids Vocabulary Games- from Radio Martha to the Great Word Quest, a nice listing here

Professor Word- add the bookmarklet to Chrome, Firefox, IE or Safari and when reading a webpage; SAT and ACT words will be identified; can also give the definition to any words on the page which are not understood

Spelling City- teachers can save vocab lists, learning activities and games

VocabAhead- SAT and ACT vocabulary building

VocabGrabber- "VocabGrabber analyzes any text you're interested in, generating lists of the most useful vocabulary words and showing you how those words are used in context."

VocabSushi- " VocabSushi provides thousands of sentences that demonstrate any vocab word's contemporary usage in news articles."

Vocabulary Worksheets- from the Lesson Corner

Vocabulary Worksheets and Printables- filter by grade level


Wordia- includes videos of students and teachers explaining the meanings of certain words, many games


These are courtesy of 
http://mediaspecialistsguide.blogspot.com/2013/04/18-fun-resources-to-help-kids-with.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AMediaSpecialistsGuideToTheInternet+(A+Media+Specialist's+Guide+to+the+Internet)


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Socratic Seminar

Warning! Read the following only if you are interested in our Social Studies 6 Socratic Seminar experience.

We just completed a unit on "Players" of the Renaissance. Students chose from four categories of Renaissance personalities (players) and then, by blind draw, selected a player to research. We used a fixed computer lab one day and Jennifer and I split the mobile lab combined with BYOD (bring your own device) the second day to complete research. Next, we had students grouped according to their "category" to expand their notes to include the other players in the category. The next step had students jigsaw grouped so that each represented one of the four categories. The last step was for students to leave their jigsaw groups and complete, solo, the three questions that would be their final preparation for the Socratic Seminar.
The three questions were:
     What category impacted the Renaissance most and why?
     What player made the biggest impact and why?
     What player was the most interesting and why?

All three opinion open ended questions were the basis for our Socratic Seminar discussion as a finale. We used this process to assess students as well. The basic level of our assessment included the initial research on student's Renaissance player. Students that completed basic research earned a basic C. The actual discussion (Socratic Seminar) took place over 1 1/2 class periods in which we used three rotations. One third of students were in the actual discussion and two thirds seated around the outside. Students seated around the outside each had an "observation" sheet of which they had to complete by observing an assigned student from the inside one third. A key to success is to include students that are not directly involved in the discussion. The observation sheets accomplished this very well. Next time we may consider a better accountability tool for the observers as it kept them very involved but students overall did a poor job of noting what they heard. We did not use the outside observation for grades. Students could  earn a B-A+ range grade for their conversation in the seminar about the players of the Renaissance.

This was our first attempt at a major Socratic event. After much discussion and idea sharing with colleagues we built handouts to guide students along the way. This unit took 7 days including the final two days for the actual discussion and exit card reflection.

Socratic Seminar is a CTL technique and you can see a couple video clips from Lavon's class.

Lavon's Socratic Seminar clips

Your Discovery Literacy Leaders