Spotlight

If you have ever wanted to create a reading comprehension lesson from one of your selected web pages, now you can. By using LessonWriter, you can select a specific web page, copy the text and go to the LessonWriter page, and paste the text. , LessonWriter selects vocabulary words from the text and creates a list including pronunciation with the word root and stem included. If you want to include the grammar as a part of your lesson, LessonWriter give that choice as well. From there, you may create questions about the text for students to answer. This might be helpful if you have a web page which includes all of your unit concepts and wish to create a test. It could be used as a language arts lesson on grammar or vocabulary words. Perhaps you just want students to read a web page for homework and answer a few questions about the content.

This site would be very helpful for ESL students, especially with the vocabulary pronunciation section. With the election this November, you will see a lot of reading material about candidates and their political views. Use LessonWriter to have students extract the information and answer some questions about the candidates. You can add a graphic organizer and/or a photo to the lesson as well. I am sure many readers will have multiple uses for this interesting way to use the web with curriculum. It is good for all age groups, since the teacher chooses the content.

I had seen this video about 2 years ago, but we are getting closer to this reality. This could provide some great discussion about privacy and sharing information. Who owns the information collected anyway?

Want to create a fun font for a worksheet, presentation, sign or poster? Here are four sites where you can use the web tools to create a fun font for your project.

1. flamingtext.com
2. cooltext.com
3. glowtxt.com

Be sure to preview theses sites BEFORE assigning any students to work there. Perhaps there may be something not appropriate for your age level student. Image below from cooltext.com.

What else is there to add? Click here to visit the site and download some great templates. If yo are using Keynote, you can open Keynote first, then open the file from the OPEN menu item.
Image below is from: http://glowtxt.com

The University of Chicago has created this site for young students to understand the process by which a mummy was made in Ancient Egypt. It is a short version of what took days to complete, but it may just be the visual you need for a younger group of students.

New to the collection of videos at DiscoveryEducation streaming is When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, Stuff Happens with Bill Nye, Discovery Atlas, Operation Junkyard, Tutenstein and Extreme Engineering. In addition they have added over 1000 titles spanning over 20 languages including Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese and Hebrew. Make sure you visit the site often, as there are new additions monthly.

Google is sponsoring a contest for people to submit ideas that would help a LOT more people. This is in celebration of their 10th anniversary and is called Project 10 to the 100th. Any person or group can submit an idea that might change the world for the better by helping a large number of people. Google will select the top 100 ideas and post them for the public to vote for their favorite idea. The top 25 semi-finalists will be announced early 2009 and a panel from Google will pare that down to the top 5 projects which they will fund.

So get your school, classroom, family, girl scout or boy scout troop, church, or team to put heads together and see how they can change the world! Google is putting $10 million forward to fund the ideas.

Begin by watching this video: click here to see it. Thanks to my Plurk buddy chocxtc for pointing out this idea!!

If you teach language arts and do not read a blog or listen to a podcast, I have two suggestions. The first is the blog called: The English Blog. It contains resources for teachers and learners of English. The most recent post was about the most difficult word to pronounce and a short list of tongue twister words. You must visit the site to see what I mean.

The second suggestion is for the podcast: GrammarGirl. Each session, she takes on the oddity of the English language explaining the differences between words. For example you can download a show which explains the use of lie vs. lay, or there vs. their. The best way to understand her podcasts, is to listen to them as a class, then have them downloaded to a classroom computer for students to refer back to as needed. Better yet, put the link on your web page, for parents to download her program to an ipod for student listening!

Free Free Free - How many times do you hear that a quality nationally recognized conference has not cost? If you are looking for a jump-start for a tech project or want to learn what emerging technologies you could use, you should sign up for this program. From the comfort of your own home, you can experience some of the country's leading experts in educational technology.

This is a "can't miss" opportunity to stop in without obligation to listen to or participate in the conversation about using web2.0 tools in your classroom. Many sessions will be archived for additional listening after the conference.

Check out the presentation wiki to see what is scheduled. Check back frequently to see additions.

The following is a re-post from Jim Gates Tipline:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/05/1231228

If you’re a science teacher, or if you KNOW a science teacher, then send them to that post. It will direct you to download this file: http://adn.agi.com/SatelliteDatabase/SatelliteDatabase.kmz

You MUST see this. Give it time to load. It loads a database that will plot the position of every known bit of space debris and satellites, both active and inactive. You won’t believe how crowded our skies are.

Then, click on an icon of a satellite and it will bring up the information about it – including whether or not it’s active. It could be just a dead hunk of metal floating around up there.

Did you read about how the space station had to side-step some space junk? Take a look at this AMAZING overlay on Google Earth and you’ll know WHY.

If you want to compare election advertisements from 1952 to today you can visit the Museum of the Moving Image website: "The Living Room Candidate". There are six different types of commercials you can view; biographical, children, commander in chief, documentary, fear, and real people. In addition, you may view commercials by issue including; civil rights, corruption, taxes, war, and welfare.

FIRST LINK - Teaching with the resources can be very helpful. If you register with them, you can keep a playlist of the ads you wish to use over and over again, without searching each time. What a timely site for teachers using the election as part of their curriculum and want to offer a new angle on the propaganda used by each side.

SECOND LINK - "Do We Encourage Voting?" A blog post by Pat Hensley at Successful Teaching. I would encourage you to read her post as well as the follow up comments. You never know where that next teaching idea may appear!

THIRD LINK - Jogtheweb - This little, but valuable web walk includes 10 resources for teaching about the Presidential election in classrooms. This one was created by Martha Thornburgh - I think she did a great job with this new tool.

Part of my PPLN (personal professional learning network) to reading and contributing to Twitter and Plurk. I learn so much from all the teachers there. Tech/teachers are so willing to share their masterpieces of lessons, web pages and ideas. Often they will ask each other to critique something before it goes public including presentations and lesson plans. I find this so unassuming and nonthreatening to ask for advice and critique. What all of that said, here is my adaptation of the ABC's of technology. There are quite a few of these on the web. Below is the PPT version:


And here is the print version I have on GoogleDocs. Now what else can I do with this idea? Use it with whatever you teach, a science or reading vocabulary, math symbols, geography locations, FCS or health terms, sports equipment for PE, word wall, holidays, space science, or a literature study, or book covers from books read by the class. The ideas are limitless, but you must share with your colleagues.

This link will take you to eschoolnews.com, where you can sign up for a FREE newsletter about events in education around the country and world. I often find links within the publication that I pass on to my faculty or post to this blog. You can find current ideas, emerging technologies and how the government has or has not funded new proposals like NCLB.

Did you know that Senator Barack Obama is using the social network LinkedIn to query constituents? Wes Fryer has written a blog post about this process as well as Daniel Pink. You can read the question and the 1493 (as of today) answers at: LinkedIn.

If you want to find thematic puzzles, word games or lessons, you should check out this site: Vocabulary.com. Just looking ahead to Constitution Day, I see at least 8 puzzles, including; fill in the blank, matching, word search and crossword. There is a monthly calendar that links to notable holidays or celebrations you can use. If you are looking for something to teach root words, there are 20 sessions available. If you already have 100's of web sites you visit, then sign up to have the newsletter sent right to your mailbox.

Each month GoogleEarth Sightseer newsletter is produced to include the new enhancements to the program. This month you can find information and links to geothermal energy, melting arctic ice, links for September dates, and some GE plugins. If you are remotely interested in using GE, you should subscribe to this newsletter at the web site. This is always a "where in the world" picture contest. Be the first to identify the image. The geothermal image above is from the newsletter site: http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/z0302a1700/sep08.htm.

Here is a novel idea for creating a small book or a study guide for any subject. This idea and more can be found at the blog of Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord. She has a free monthly newsletter available for subscription. There is a link on the page to purchase one of her books or book on CD. These look to have some interesting lesson ideas as well as some creative ways to include book making in your various curriculum areas. Give it a try and visit her site.

If you are looking for a way for students to explore levers, pulleys, wheels and their combined action, try the http://fantasticcontraption.com/. I was exploring for a while when I suddenly realized that it had been 30 minutes of fun. I am not a science teacher, but it appears to be for most ages. Looking deeper into the site, I found a help board, some multi-player games, and online challenges.

If you do not subscribe to http://www.eschoolnews.com, then take a look at this resource for geospatial learning. Google Earth has catapulted our interest in "where is", distances and mapping. In addition, many families have GIS systems in their car, and devices for geocaching activities. Except for the devices, use of GoogleEarth is free and the activity of geocaching can be free.

This site from eschoolnews.com offers ideas for integrating geospatial technologies in your classroom. It is not just for geography and science teachers. There are lesson ideas for math, following directions, reading for learning, service projects, and helping our students be 21st century learners.

For more information:

• GoogleEarth - Education
• Geocaching - The official site
• Guide to Geographic Information Systems
• Meg Basilio's Spotlight on Geography blog
• The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency

Do you wonder where John McCain or Barack Obama stand on the technology issues facing our country? This article will give you a simple understanding of where each of the candidates stand.

This information re-posted from Jim GatesTipline:
"The speeches from the political conventions are available in audio (all) and video (some) via iTunes. I am sure they are available on youtube but they will probably be in higher quality via iTunes.

Are you planning to have your students analyze the speeches? This might be the perfect place to get them. Unless... PLEASE don't tell me that iTunes is blocked in your school, too."

DNC - YouTube
RNC - YouTube

To read more of Jim's Tipline, visit his blog at: http://tipline.blogspot.com/