Technology Gems, Ideas, and Facts

Friday, Nov. 6, 2009

Gem ~ a website or application that might work well for you or your students

Footnote is a site that contains a huge collection of historical documents and images. You can search using their timeline or by topic, or browse their special collections. This site could be useful for student research at the secondary level, while elementary teachers could use it to find resources for building background about historical topics. (http://www.footnote.com/)

Idea ~ a way to enhance your LFS lessons with technology

neoK12 provides educational videos on a wide variety of curricular topics for students in K-12. The videos are all reviewed and approved by K-12 educators. Videos are not available for download, but they are accessible on our network, even though many of them are hosted at sites such as YouTube. You may have to wait a few seconds for the streaming video to be ready to play, but once it is, you can drag the controls through the video to show only the sections that pertain to your lesson. There are also some quiz games for certain topics. By setting up a free account, you can save playlists and create presentations using photos available on the site. (http://www.neok12.com/)

Fact ~ just a bit of information

This week the US Department of Education announced the appointment of Karen Cator as the new head of the federal Office of Education Technology. While this may not be news in your circle, I have met and worked with Karen on several occasions and I am thrilled that someone with her experience and vision has been named to this position. Karen really “gets” it when it comes to the role of technology in teaching and learning.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Anne