Free Technology for Teachers: 11 Foreign Language Resources to Try in 2011 | Diigo

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10 Tips for Teachers Using Evernote - Education Series « Evernote Blogcast | Diigo

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There is no Tech Tuesday this week but you are not forgotten. I have published a very simple quick sheet to help you hook up a SMARTboard to a laptop cart. Some of the basic trouble shooting is included and helps walk you through the the steps.

Resources:

Reading (and more): Research and online text is daunting for students in the middle grades. They are usually overwhelmed by the reading level more than anything else. Just think how often they use Wikipedia as a source and are stumped by the expert language. Here comes Twurdy. Twurdy is a search engine from Google, however all the "hits" are categorized by their reading level. According the site, "Twurdy uses custom designed readability software that includes information about the number of words on the page, the average number of syllables in each word, the average sentence length and more to determine a pages readability level." There are 3 options for searching, Simple Twurdy (fast but less accurate on the readability) up to Twurdy with Pop (slower but the algorithms are better.) What should you do with this? Direct students to use Twurdy for research and instruct them that only websites that are light pink or white should be used as sources. These are age appropriate reading levels.

Science: Energy conservation is a big topic around the globe so it is great when our Canadian neighbors design a site with multiple lessons. EarthCare is a wonderful source for lesson plans about alternative energy, waste management and clean water. In these 54 lesson plans and 19 activities you might find one that fits your curriculum or is a great enhancement. I particular like the Lights Off/Computers Off activity.

Learning Types: This is one of my favorites. When trying to understand all the different types of learners in the class and how to adjust your teaching, the Visual-Spatial Learner is very well suited to technology integration. But why? At this website, the visual-spatial learner is explained and there are ways you can identify this student in your classroom.

History: Now that you know how to save videos (see previous blog), make the most of primary source videos from CriticalPast.com. This site offers over 57,000 historical film clips and they are categorized easily by decade. Start every class with a short social video and students that are visual (see site above) will learn it.

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Today's Tech Tuesday focuses on the all important PowerPoint.

• insert and understand videos and not loose them
• create a playable file for uploading to Blackboard
• design your own templates using the Master Slide (or not).

Resources:

All Subjects: Sure there are plenty of conglomerations of resources for lessons but Curriki does it just a bit differently with their search options. For example, I'm thinking of starting a new unit but really don't know where to begin. I can Google and find lessons, but a whole unit is rare. Curriki offers this and more and they even use the Google Search engine to do so. I particularly liked the science lesson/experiment "Why Whales Don't Have Legs."

Math: I ran into this website and did not make an account but did email myself the solution to an algebra problem. I believe any math teacher (or maybe I should say math student) would want an account at Mathway.com. Mathway.com offers step by step solutions to virtually any math problem and the best part is, all this can be embedded in Blackboard, worksheets designed and graphs created. If any math teacher does make an account, I'd love to hear what you think about the features.

Literature: Perhaps I've mentioned the resource Edsitement before. It is a wonderful resource for lessons but I particularly like the detailed use of online literature you can find here. As an example, a lesson on Introducing the Essay provides both Mark Twain examples and Frederick Douglass. No need to search to support your lessons, every link and library are added. It is worth a second look.

Techies: I use the SEND TO option a lot. If you aren't aware of this handy save option, right click on a file or whole folder and you'll see the SEND TO in the menu that appears. There are basic locations such as My Documents, Desktop, your CD/DVD drive, and others depending on the computer. I particularly like it when I insert a flash drive or external hard drive because they also show up on the SEND TO menu. This makes it simple to back up large amounts of data in a hurry.  But you can add other locations to the SEND TO menu, particularly folders located on your H: drive. Really, these are just shortcuts in the menu and are very easy to create. Microsoft's howto gives the full details.

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