The following is a quote that accompanies the “Pay Attention” Video… “Since most of today’s students can appropriately be labeled as “Digital Learners”, why do so many teachers refuse to enter the digital age with their teaching practices? This presentation was created in an effort to motivate teachers to more effectively use technology in their teaching. Please see http://t4.jordandistrict.org/payatten… to learn how you can become a better teacher.”
Today I went to David Livingstone Elementary in Vancouver where they have Interactive Whiteboards in every classroom. I attended one of their “SMARTBoard Cafe” meetings which are open to anyone in the district to discuss the use of Interactive Whiteboards in their classrooms. I was inspired by the work these teachers are doing to improve instruction, and to support their colleagues in improving instruction throughout the district. They have found many benefits for students as they use Interactive Whiteboards including: increased student engagement, increased inclusion of students with learning needs and learning disabilities, increased ownership of the learning process by students, increased … Continue reading SMARTBoard Cafe
Check out my bookshelf! A bit unimpressive right now but I have more to add…really… Not much more though as I have mostly been reading web sources, articles, and the Educational Leadership magazine. http://www.shelfari.com/astrang
Some parents and educators are concerned about allowing children to post to the Internet via wikis, blogs, or other interactive web sites. Here is your chance to put forth your arguments. My thoughts are below: While we need to carefully consider how and why our children are posting, we also need to ensure that they are provided with carefully guided opportunities especially during their preteen years. Preteen children are usually far more willing to listen to advice on how to post safely and on how to evaluate their posts and the posts of others, and to seek our advice. Regardless … Continue reading Using the Read-Write web with children
Kerpoof Check out this fantastic free site where kids can write stories, draw a picture, or make a movie. Kids can collaborate with others on their projects, and provide each other with feedback. It will be so fun to play with the drawing function on the SmartBoard as the kids illustrate their own stories. It is a great way to introduce the read-write web to students. If you are concerned about using a social site with your children or students please check out my thoughts (and hopefully the comments of others … someday) about why we need to provide children with … Continue reading Kerpoof
What do you imagine a perfect world would look like? Please watch… [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/hVGP1gbnP7k” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
ZoomIt is a program that provides users with three tools. It runs in the background and is quickly activated by hotkeys. It allows you to quickly zoom in on any are of your screen within any program, to mark the screen using your mouse or touch pad (especially useful during presentations using any program), and to turn your computer screen into a countdown timer. Read more and download this freeware at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx/.
Check out Phun Physics. Some of my students have been working on building interresting 2d objects and watching how they interact. They especially enjoy the water effects. One of them was experimenting with creating shapes that would float and that would sink. Very fun when used with the SmartBoard. Download at http://www.phun.at/ [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/0H5g9VS0ENM” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Thanks to those of you who attended our UDL presentation today – and thanks for visiting my blog! Below are the links we spoke about in today’s presentation. If there are any others that I forgot about please post a response to this blog and I will find them for you. Remember that all of these and many others are also tagged on my Del.icio.us site: http://del.icio.us/astrang. Please also feel free to post questions you have about UDL. Being able to better meet the needs of our students can be overwhelming and would have been very difficult for us without … Continue reading Web Links from CTA Conference Presentation
A couple of new resources that have been passed along to me recently: TumbleBook – This is an amazing collection of accessible texts. Many favorite children’s books are available here. Most of them include text and highlight the sentence being read to help children with tracking. There are also games on this site that are related to the stories. The one I played with a student was a word game which involved a clue from which the child works to figure out a single word answer Hang-Man style. The only draw-back was that the clue is text and I had to … Continue reading UDL web resources
