21st Century Learning & Teaching

As this 2011-2012 school year continues in full swing, it is a great opportunity to assess how effectively I am reaching and teaching our 21st Century Learners.  I feel as if I am very prepared for 21st Century teaching and learning.  I several hours every day looking for new resources, tools, and strategies to reach today's 21st Century Learners.  I focus on what tools will not only make the learning process more engaging, but also help make my lessons "teaching that sticks."  I try my best to share my resources and strategies with my colleagues at school, and when time permits, with my colleagues online with my blog.  The process of researching, assessing, sharing, re-assessing is very important to the education process today. I feel my students leave my classroom...

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Technology, School, & Me!

Everyday I walk into my classroom, I feel I do a great job of integrating technology into my daily curriculum.  As a technology teacher, it is my job and my passion.  Walking through my school, it is awesome to see many teachers developing lesson plans and digital age learning experiences.  Booking our computer lab or mobile laptop carts is becoming more difficult with each passing week as school progresses.  Students in 8th Grade are able to plan and present "Virtual Vacations" to historic places and events they discuss in Social Studies Class, they create video dictionaries about the meanings of standardized test vocabulary, they virtually explore famous Civil War battles online, and create podcasts about school events and monthly updates around our school.  Students...

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Scriblink - Your Free Online Virtual Whiteboard!!

Scriblink is a site that offers basic whiteboard capabilites, for free, within your web browser.  What is really cool about Scriblink is you can write on blank pages, upload your own photos and images, or paste a URL of an online image and add your own annotations to it. Scriblink allows you to share the whiteboard with a friend via a unique URL that you share with them.  There is even a chatbox to chat with those you are sharing your whiteboard with. Finally, you can save your images you create in Scriblink to your hard drive for later review (students who are absent?).   Scirblink offers many awesome features with...

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1906: The Great Quake Cover Up - Earthquake Simulator from Discovery Channel

1906: The Great Quake Cover Up is a fun interactive resource from the Discovery Channel that allows students to explore earthquakes and their effects on different structures.  Students select a type of surface to erect a building on, the type of "earthquake proofing" technology they would like to use, then subject the building to three different levels of earthquake intensity.  This is an awesome site to extend your classroom curriculum about natural disasters and earthquakes, you could use it as a resource to have students practice predicting (What will happen if....), or as a resource for comparing and contrasting (Why did structure...

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The Mason Dixon Report - An "1861 Civil War Cable News Show!"

The Mason Dixon Report is an awesome site containing 7 video "News Reports" covering an "in depth look beneath the surface of the Civil War."  I saw this posted on Glenn Wiebe's History Tech Blog HERE! The Mason Dixon Report re-imagines the events of the Civil War through "live" news reports, on air debates, editorials and more.  Once I started watching the first video, I couldn't turn away.  These videos are very well done and incredibly entertaining.  They cover the "stories" with such a serious demenour it makes the videos almost comical, but always educational and entertaining. These videos would be a great extension...

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"What September 11th Means To Me" a simple activity using Wordle.

Wordle is a site that allows students to create cool graphic images and posters using an arrangement of words, phrases, and sentences.  Words that repeat the most in your Wordle, will appear larger than other words. Type in a list of words or phrases to get started! In my class, students are using Wordle to create images/posters of "What September 11th Means to Me."  Students type into Wordle a list of words, phrases, emotions, sentences, what that date means to them as individuals, and anything else they know about September 11th.   The only input I give them is to make sure their Wordles are respectful and appropriate for...

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VectorKids - Interactive Math Games and Skill Builders for Kids!

VectorKids is a site that offers several interactivities and games to help build student skills in Mathematics (and even Social Studies too).  The site offers mostly math activities to help students with basic to intermediate math concepts.  VectorKids skill builders include help for multiplication tables, solving for variables, division rules, addition, subtraction, counting money, geometry and even a United States Capitals Game. The games are simple and would offer a nice extension to your classroom activities or extra help for specific students who may be struggling with these concepts. Check out VectorKids at: http://www.v...

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