Technology Gems, Ideas, and Facts
Friday, Oct. 30, 2009
Gem ~ a website or application that might work well for you or your students
Homework Hotline provides resources to students to help with homework, but many of them could help teachers in the classroom as well. There are short videos on a variety of subjects that can be viewed online or downloaded for use offline. The “Needed Knowledge” section provides students with a list of links to sites that might help them with research. The site is produced in New York, so some of the content is specific to that state, but there is still much that can be useful to our students. The resources are probably more appropriate for elementary and middle school students, but could also be useful to our English Language Learners at any age and others who just need some extra help. (http://homeworkhotline.org/)
Idea ~ a way to enhance your LFS lessons with technology
When I first came across this site I wasn’t overly impressed…until I played with it for a few minutes, that is. Word Magnets is a very cool web application that allows you to create “magnets” with letters, words, numbers…anything you can type…and move them around on a
background. The highlight (in my opinion) is that there are many different backgrounds to choose from, including tables, Venn diagrams, numbered lists, and a variety of graphic organizers. This would be a great way to have students practice any kind of sorting activity, Word Splash, sequencing…the list goes on. You can copy and paste the text into Word Magnets or add magnets once you’ve chosen your background. The only problem is that you can’t save your work. When you’re finished you can take a screenshot though, as I’ve done here. Give this one a try! (There’s a short little promo that runs when you first enter the site. I haven’t found a way to skip that…but it’s worth waiting through it!) (http://www.triptico.co.uk/flashFiles/wordMagnets/Word%20Magnets.swf)
Fact ~ just a bit of information
Don’t forget that we turn our clocks back an hour this weekend. Your computer at school will update automatically, so there’s nothing you have to do there. The clock in your classroom should update on its own, but if it doesn’t, Rick Freer will be around on Monday to take care of it. Enjoy the extra hour!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Anne
Just a reminder to my elementary friends, I’m constantly on the lookout for links to informational and interactive websites that fit your curricular needs. Some of these searches come at the request of specific teachers, but other times I literally stumble upon something that I think would be useful. Rather than email you all when I find a new link or continue to add every new link to my webpage, I’ve been using my Delicious bookmarking account to collect and organize these sites. This week I added quite a few new math sites and some sites about reading strategies. Some of the sites are for teachers, but most are activities for the kids. When I add a new site, it appears first on the list, but you can click on the tags at the right side to see only bookmarks about a particular topic. If you find something that you’d like to use with your students, please add the individual links to your own webpage. Please don’t just link directly to my Delicious account. There are too many choices there and the kids would be overwhelmed. If you need help adding links to your webpage, just let me know!
Also…if you have some good sites that you find useful with your students or that you think other teachers would like, please share them with me! I’ll add them to the list so that we can all benefit!