Bring reality to your classroom and having fun too

I have two gems to share with you today .....

1. Making math real: "How can four friends share six cookies equally?"
http://www.educationreporting.com/viewArticleDetails.php?id=817

2. Five star teacher blog: from toys to tools - how to use cell phones in class.
http://www.educationreporting.com/index.php#blogs

Jack

Cool, free tech stuff for learning tools

Technology is here to stay and as educators we have to learn it and, if we are lucky, keep up with it. Here are some tools you can use for free, each has a different level of skill requirements.

Get "Pro" version of Google Earth for free.
Read how and learn about how to apply it in your lessons here.

Productivity: documents, presentations, file storage, database, and more
Zoho is a suite of online applications (services) used from an online server. The applications are free for individuals and some have a subscription fee for organizations.

Virtual World
Quest Atlantis (QA) is an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9-15, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation.

Chat Rooms
1. Yaplet: a simple idea: Add anonymous, no-registration chat to any Web site. Yaplet is a browser sidebar that can also be popped out as its own browser window.
2. ChatMaker: make your own chat room.
3. Chatzy: make your own chat room

Presentation – Collaboration
1. Multiple people can work on a document at the same time: Just 2 Easy, Zoho Writer, Solodox.
2. White board that allows multiple online users – up to five – at the same time: Scriblink.
3. White board that allows multiple online users and you can paste in other docs too: Skrbl.
4. Squeak is a "media authoring tool"-- software that you can download to your computer and then use to create your own media or share and play with others. It is free and downloadable here.

Webquests
1. A web-based software for creating WebQuests in a short time. When you use zWebquest, you will not need any of writing HTML code or using any web editor software. zWebquest creates all the necessary files and puts them on the server automatically.
2. Filamentality is a free fill-in-the-blank tool that guides you through picking a topic, searching the Internet, gathering good Internet links, and turning them into online learning activities.

Provided by Education Reporting, Inc website for reports, trends, and news on K-12 education.

Technology Worth Using in Class for Curriculum

Hey, it's Saturday morning and what am I doing working on this blog? Call me crazy.

There is a this place on the web, so rich in ideas and thoughts for the K-12 students ... a fertile oasis in the dusty desert: Ted.

Why? Ted is the leading ideas in thought ...to my knowledge, it's the only repository of these gems. It's FREE and it's easily accessible.

As a teacher, my big challenge is fitting it into class. Lately I've been doing it during it homeroom, but that is only one class. I found Ted from another teacher, F. Lajvardi; he is an amazing guy .... talk about phenomenal teacher. He has project based learning in action happening.

Using Ted always stirs up some interesting questions ... they are better when the content we are studying segways in the Ted topic we watch. The last one I used was Jane Goodall where she discusses her work. There are so many that I have a hard time keep track of ones I can use ... I also recently showed E. O. Wilson, a biologist exploring the world of ants and other tiny creatures ... about the way all creatures great and small are interdependent....talk about driving home those core concepts of variables, ecosystems, habitats and niches.

Guess you can decipher by now that I'm a biology teacher.

That's it for today, just want to put my two cents in to promote Ted.... a five star lesson tool ... the brilliant and aspiring minds of our planet - to lead the next generation of leaders.

Cheers!