Greetings! With Thanksgiving around the corner, it's the time of year to ... look at people's trash? A fellow librarian brought my attention to an interesting project called Waste in Focus, which aims to focus attention on the issue of waste here in the United States. The creative team behind the project, Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, used photography to examine what happened to the trash of eight American families over the course of a week. Each photograph is accompanied by data on each family's trash. The photos, which they managed to make aesthetically pleasing, could be a great way to start a conversation about the environment, or as a resource for the unit on Nature's Delicate Balance. The website is sponsored by Glad, but the project was independently developed and produced.
Rosanne
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
March 2014: Pixabay
Greetings! In my never-ending search to find good quality public-domain pictures on the web, I came across the website Pixabay.com. Originally started by two photographers in Germany, Pixabay has grown into an international repository for high quality images free of copyright restrictions. The pictures are truly beautiful, and are searchable by keyword or you can browse through their library to see what is there.
Pixabay does generate income by ad support. Therefore, when you search for a picture by keyword, a set of Shutterstock images, with visible watermarks, appear at the top of the results. However, everything appearing directly beneath that first row is 100% free to download and use. Try it today with the keyword "crocus" and think spring!
Rosanne
February 2014: Newsela
Greetings! Are you looking for those short articles for your students to read so they can practice their "close reading" skills? Do you need a way to bring current events into your classroom? If so, check out Newsela (www.newsela.com).
Several presenters at this year's Christa McAuliffe Tech conference spoke of how they love using this website with their students. Each day, the site carries news stories from around the country and the world, each story appearing on the website's front page with a picture, a short description of the article, and a topic category. The site also has a search function and quizzes. The great part about the site, however, is that upon clicking the news article, the student can choose a lexile level and read the article at a reading level that is appropriate for him or her.
You can sign up for a free teacher account yourself, create a classroom to enable student assignments, or try the website out using the account I set up: usernameHooksett, password Memorial.
Rosanne
January 2014: Code Academy
Greetings! Thanks to Tina, many students were able to try coding during the Week of Code in December. For those who have students who want to be challenged even further, you can point them to Code Academy (www.codeacademy.com), a website where students can learn to code, interactively, for free. There are different lessons to choose from, and students can create an account or just choose a lesson and get started. Badges are earned as you make your way through the instructions and complete the coding tasks. I tried one of the lessons using JavaScript and animated my name with bubbles - fun!
Rosanne
December 2013: Free Rice
Greetings! At this time of the year, we are all looking for a way to bring some meaning into the season. You can do for others AND have fun by playing on the site Freerice.com. I came across this site last month and have played on it several times with my daughters. The concept is simple. This is how Common Sense Media explains it:
It's fiendishly simple: the screen presents the viewer with a vocabulary question. Click on the correct answer and FREE RICE donates ten grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. A graphic on the side shows bowls of rice as they fill and accumulate. That's it. Except that now there's another word on the screen, a harder word, so you click on the definition for that one and watch as the score improves. By the time the participant checks out the other topics available -- geography, French, multiplication tables -- dozens of words have been defined and multiple bowls full of rice have been donated.
Check out the FAQs on the website to see how the rice is purchased and donated. You can sign up for an account (free) if you want to track your total donations, or just access the website and start playing.
Happy holidays!
Rosanne
November 2013: Poll Everywhere
Greetings! Poll Everywhere (www.polleverywhere.com) has been around for some time - if you've been to a conference in the past few years, you've probably used it. However, have you thought of the ways you could use it with your students?
I finally tried it out with some 5th grade classrooms last week, with good results. Attached is one of the results of the polls I conducted, with students using their devices or computer workstations to reply. It was easy and the students were totally engaged!
How does it work? Sign up for a free account on the website, create a poll, then let your students reply (a free account allows for 40 responses per poll) and see the results in real time on the web. You can create your poll to allow for multiple choice or open-ended answers (or use a clickable image!).
Here are some ideas for classroom use from Lisa Nielson's Innovative Educator blog:
There are endless ways this tool can be used to enhance learning.
1) Set up a homework help poll for a particular assignment or unit of study. Students can simply text in the questions when they have them. This could set the stage beautifully for the next day's lesson enabling the teacher to differentiate instruction based on student need.
2) Have students respond to a discussion topic. The teacher shares the topic and students text in their answers to be viewed publicly or privately by the teacher.
3) Of course, what Poll Everywhere does better than the rest, is polls. Need to do a quick check for understanding? Poll your students. Want them to vote on a favorite character in a book? Poll your students. Collecting data on a science experiment? Poll your students. Poll Everywhere provides educators with the ability to know what all their students are thinking at anytime and works great as a pre and post assessment quizzing tool.
Thanks!
Rosanne
February 2013: Google Art Project
Are you looking to go from STEM to STEAM and need an art resource? Check out the Google Art Project (googleartproject.com), a collection of 1,000 plus images from museums around the world, all photographed in extremely high resolution. Click on Collections to view art work by museum, or view by Art or Artwork. The Gallery feature lets you create your own collection and share it with your students, a great option that allows you to choose only those pieces of art that you feel are appropriate to view with your class.
Rosanne
January 2013: Study Island
Greetings! Study Island is a fun and engaging way for students to receive instruction or practice and review skills in math and language arts. However, there are great resources on Study Island for teachers as well. Just sign in to your teacher account and follow these steps to find common core lessons:
1. Click on NH Programs, the blue button on the left-hand side of the screen.
2. Select your grade level from the drop-down menu.
3. Choose Math (Common Core) or ELA (Common Core) on the right.
4. Click on the apple symbol to access a short lesson plan description, a short 2-3 minute video detailing the lesson, and other lesson materials if applicable.
Thanks to Mel Godbout for sharing this resource!
Rosanne
November 2012: Educreations
Greetings! The website of the month for November is Educreations, a free site and iPad app I found out about today at the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference. Educreations is a recordable interactive whiteboard that captures your voice and handwriting to create video lessons that can be played back on the computer or the iPad.
I attached an example (photo, no video) I just created on the iPad, using a photo I took of one of the conference schedules. Besides being used by teachers to create content for students, students could also use the app on the iPads to add annotations and video to a picture to show what they know. It can then be saved under the teacher's free account and then shared with the class.
I downloaded the app on the library iPads if you would like to come and check it out!
Rosanne
October 2012: Brainpop
Greetings! Again this year, I will be sharing with you a website that I have found useful and fun, or that is being used successfully by other staff members. Hopefully, by sharing resources, we can further develop our professional learning community and find new ways to integrate technology into our classrooms.
This month's website is Brainpop. Yes, we have had Brainpop for the last several years but did you know:
- As a teacher, you can access Brainpop after-hours. While students can sign onto Brainpop 7AM-5:30PM with the student user name and password, teachers can sign in after-hours using the following:
User name hooksett_teacher
Password memorial
- That teachers can create their own Brainpop quizzes, or remix and edit existing quizzes, with the new feature "The Mixer"? Just create a free Brainpop Educators profile and you are on your way. Click on this link to watch a short video about how to use this exciting new feature and to get more information.
- That Brainpop has lots of Election 2012 materials available for your students? Check out the Spotlight video on Elections, running on the main page through November 6th, or delve further into timely topics like Voting, Presidential Elections, Presidential Power, Primaries and Caucuses, Political Parties, and more.
As always, I would be glad to help you explore any of these topics.
Thanks!
March 2012: Visuwords
Greetings. The March website of the month is Visuwords, an online graphical dictionary and thesaurus (www.visuwords.com). Entering a word in the search box results in an explosion of nodes, like a word tree, showing the original word and it's connection to other similar words or concepts. Find the definition of each word by hovering your mouse over the individual nodes. Double-click on nodes to expand the word tree. Move around the screen to check out the different trees.
Sound strange? Go to Visuwords and check it out!
Rosanne
February 2012: Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet
Greetings! The February website of the month is actually an entry on a blog that I follow called The Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet. The following link will take you to the entry on the blog entitled
"39 Sites For Using iPads in the Classroom":
Some of the linked articles are more helpful than others, but browsing through them is sure to give you ideas on new ways to use the iPads during your day, and also some new apps that we might want to purchase.
Rosanne
January 2012: Dropbox
Greetings! The January website of the month is Dropbox (www.dropbox.com). With a free dropbox account and the newly installed dropbox app on the iPad, you can now share photos and videos between the iPads and your computer workstations. Simply sign up for your dropbox account, and use the attached instructions to transfer photos and videos from the iPads to your dropbox account. These can then be accessed or shared with others.
Let me know if you have any questions or need some assistance!
Rosanne
December 2011: Science Buddies
Holiday Greetings! Looking to give your students the gift of science inquiry skills this year? This month's website can help with that. Science Buddies (www.sciencebuddies.org) is an award-winning website that offers science project ideas in all areas of science. Search the Project Idea Library or have students use the Topic Selection Wizard to match them with their grade level and areas of interest. This website is recommended by Deirdre Brotherson's 4th grade class, who used it last year with great success.
Do you want your students to share their experiment results with others? A second great website
is 24/7 Science (http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/kidsite/).
is 24/7 Science (http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/kidsite/).
View Collections to check out some of the experiments and science activities. Results are entered online. Once they're submitted, your students can check out a graph showing their results and those of others.
Rosanne
November 2011: Quietube
Greetings! This month's "Website of the Month" is Quietube, a neat tool that comes in handy when you find a great YouTube video to share with the class, but want to avoid the distracting comments and ads. Simply go to the Quietube website (www.quietube.com), drag the Quietube button to your Safari toolbar, and that's it. Next time you access a YouTube video, click on the Quietube button and view the video on it's own page, with either a white or black background.
Rosanne
October 2011: Wallwisher
This month's website is Wallwisher.com. You can use Wallwisher to create online bulletin boards, where adding a post-it note is as easy as click-write-post! I've created a board and have posted some ideas of how Wallwisher could be used with your students. Please try out Wallwisher by clicking and posting your own ideas!
My bulletin board: http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/uXqBLp1bDy
Thanks!
Rosanne
Update November 2014: Wallwisher is now called Padlet, but all of the capabilities remain the same!
Update November 2014: Wallwisher is now called Padlet, but all of the capabilities remain the same!
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