Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Teacher's Guide to Facebook: How to Use...and Not Use

I think this blog entry says it all, so I am just going to link to it. I want to explore how to make a classroom page and use social networking more with a school system and my counseling program, but I still have a lot to learn. Although long, this blog entry was fairly easy to read and understand and put things in nice bullet point and chart forms. I love the "do's" and "don'ts" that this post lists. Lots of good stuff for us all to think about and maybe later discuss....


(Thank you Edudemic for this great resource!)

Skype in the Classroom

Just a quick post to alert you that Skype is soon making it easier to partner up with another teacher from somewhere around the country or world or simply search educators and classrooms anywhere you want to in order to communicate back and forth with them. In other words, why read about Mexico, California, or New York City when you could Skype a teacher in that area and with a webcam get a view of their classroom, students, and culture. An interesting idea, but likely not an idea anyone in our district has tried. Might be a good project for someone to try. You could use donorschoose or write a grant for a webcam (or buy one) and set up your own video conference with another classroom within weeks!

Click here for more on Skype in the Classroom

Best Web 2.0 Sites and Tools of 2010

Thank you to Larry Ferlazzo and his Websites of the Day blog, here is a list of the best 20 sites to help you in the classroom this year and beyond. One of his most popular posts each year, I think there is something for everyone to try somewhere on his list. I have used a few including Webklipper and Simple Booklet. You might consider testing some of these out on Thanksgiving or Christmas Break as they could be a nice addition to your curriculum.

Click here for his blog entry about the best sites!

LiveBinders....I'm Thinking the Possibilities are Endless!

Seems like I always find the best sites late at night and I've done it again. I love the idea of LiveBinders. Basically, it is a "3-ring binder" online. You can make your own binder over a unit you teach complete with videos online, websites you use, documents you hand out, and your own notes. You can make a binder over a certain subject or topic or news event. Or better yet...you can have the students make a binder over an animal, an historical event, or a story they read. They would search the web for sites, videos, information, and documents to fill their binder so they could show you what they learned. Very interesting stuff....give it a try! I plan to try making some binders starting this week!

Discovery Education Tools: 25 of Them!

If you use Discovery Education (and many of you do), I am directing you to a blog by Educational Technology Guy (a great blog to follow by the way) and his post about Web 2.0 Technologies. The part I think you will like is the middle part of the blog where he highlights 10 of the best 25 tools that Discovery Education makes. He has listed other online tools and things you can use, but I thought the Discovery Education items might affect us the most. Give some of these a try and report back as to how it works.

Click here for his blog entry on Discovery Education