Elementary Technology

ideas, tips and tricks for all those involved in elementary technology

Elementary Technology

Refrigerator Magnets

March 15th, 2009 · No Comments · Resources

Remember those little magnets you could play with on the refrigerator?  You could make words with individual letters? Or when you got a little older, you could string words together into phrases or even sentences? Well now you can do the same think, only online of course. Magnetic Poetry gives you a choice of 4 different kits of magnetic words on your own virtual refrigerator. Each kit is based on a different theme such as First Words, Storymaker and Best Friends. All you have to do is drag the words you choose over to the front of the refrigerator and create. This has endless possibilities in the classroom especially if you use this on the SMART Board. Imagine giving your class tasks at the refrigerator that can be differentiated for each student. You could ask one student to create a sentence using an action word. Or another student might be asked to create a sentence using spelling words.  And of course you can change the tasks with the different themes too.

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Read Across America

March 1st, 2009 · No Comments · Resources

March 2nd is Read Across America Day. The National Education Association has sponsored this event for the past 12 years. The focus of the event is to motivate children to read, in addition to helping them master basic skills. The NEA’s website has a dedicated section to this event with many resources and materials to help you celebrate this day. One resource is 4 free digital books from Dr. Seuss at Kidthing.  And don’t forget to visit Dr. Seuss’ fun filled website  Seussville for ideas too.

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Spelling City

February 18th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Resources

Spelling City is an online spelling program that is customizable. You can enter your own spelling words and create games, quizzes and worksheets that are customized to individual students. Imagine students being able to play games like Word Search, Unscramble, HangMouse and  CompleteThe Word using their own spelling lists. With the teacher options, teachers can create and save lists for the entire year. Students can also login and access this from home. With a focus on differentiated instruction, this free website can be a great way to track and assess individual student’s progress.

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Photo Op

February 7th, 2009 · No Comments · Resources

I discovered Photo Op while searching around on the National Gallery of Art website. It is a website filled with interactive art activites for kids. Photo Op caught my eye because I found a great way to use it. Each year, my Tech Team students spend a lot of time using the digital cameras for school functions. There is never enough time or cameras for them to really practice the art of digital photography. By that I mean, focusing on a subject, snapping the picture at the right time and then editing the image. This fun application allows them to practice these skills in a kid friendly yet sophisticated environment. It is a  great tool to use to teach the art of digital photography.

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Groundhog Day

February 1st, 2009 · No Comments · SMART Board

Here we are at Groundhog Day and thanks to the site “Teachers Love SMARTBoards“, here are two SMART notebook files about Groundhog Day that can be used as is or revised and customized. This is a great example of how a little searching found something close to what I want but not exactly. Instead of starting from scratch, all I have to do is edit the file and save it for my own use. One of them has a great page on having the students predict whether he will see his shadow or not.

Here they are:

groundhog_activities-1

groundhog-activities-2

Enjoy!

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Teaching Reading Comprehension

January 26th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Resources

I just came across a great website that is developed by  the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and a team of experienced educators It is a sight rich with resources for K-4 students and teachers. The site allows the student to practice eight research based strategies of reading comprehension, Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing. They are all here with online interactive lessons and practice. The teacher area is filled with resources as well, including, songs, posters etc. It is well worth a visit.

http://reading.ecb.org/index.html

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Technology Night 2009

January 19th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Student Work

For the third year in a row, our school district will host Technology Night. It is a night for parents, students, administrators, Board of Education members and the community to see technology in action in our schools. It will be held on Feb. 25th.  In the past, we have asked the teachers to be the presenters and highlight their use of technology in all different curriculum areas. But this year will be different. We have opened it up and asked the students to do the presenting. Teachers will serve as mentors to the students as they design and prepare their presentations. We will have presenters from grades 1-12 in the areas of math, science and technology education. We have asked students in grades 5-12 to apply to present. I am amazed at the projects that the students have submitted. We are going to see a model smart house, video game creations, a robotic scarecrow, geocaching with a handheld GPS, website creations, building designs with Sketch-up, hydro-power explorations, a hover plane concept, a rubix cube solving robot, and many more. I can’t wait to see it all! 

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Martin Luther King’s Message-Wordle style

January 14th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Resources, Uncategorized

I heard about Wordle a while ago and tried it out and thought it was pretty cool. I passed it on to our writing resource teacher who also thought it had great possibilities for use in writing lessons. So, I have been waiting to find the right time and the right way to introduce Wordle to some of our teachers. Today, while searching for Martin Luther King resources, it came to me. Create a Wordle out of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and see what it looks like.  Although I have heard excerpts of the speech for the past few years, I have not listened to nor read the entire speech. So, here it is… no surprise to me at which words are the largest. I think I found a great resource for teaching about Martin Luther King and what he was all about. I think he would have been proud of his Wordle.

http://www.wordle.net

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SMART Board Templates

January 11th, 2009 · No Comments · SMART Board, Uncategorized

For those of you who are just starting to create new lessons on your SMART Board…here’s a gift. I always advise people to search for lessons that may already be created. They may meet all your needs or may need to be tweaked slightly and then will be just what you’re looking for. Here are two notebook files for your SMART Board, ready to go. One for grades K-2 on counting change and one for grades 3-4 on multiplication practice.

Counting Change notebook file

Multiplication Wheel notebook file

And here’s the site they came from with many, many more.

http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/EDTECH/SB/templates.htm

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SMART Board Resources

January 6th, 2009 · 4 Comments · SMART Board

Our school is lucky enough to have SMART Boards in almost every classroom. Today, we held a training session for beginning SMART Board users. As the instructor showed the teachers the gallery section and all the different ways you can create lessons, I saw that overwhelming look come over their eyes. When do any of us have enough time to create lessons while getting to know our SMART Boards? The trainer had some very effective strategies such as dividing up curriculum areas among teachers in a grade level and sharing newly found or created lessons or taking 10-15 minutes a day to use a new tool or downloading the software and “playing” with the notebook when you are relaxed and in the comfort of your own home where you can experiment and make mistakes privately.

I want to take these strategies one step further and offer what I have learned while creating many, many lessons. I always begin by searching for lessons that may have been created already. I am compiling a list of websites where you can start your searching:

Websites with SMART Board Resources

(thank you Barry Williams, Diigo)

I also discovered that many of our teachers have already created outstanding lessons that can be shared. I am in search of a web based presence where teachers can upload, categorize, tag, search and also rate these notebook files. Any ideas?

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