Make a Trading Card of Yourself and Your Students

Use Big Huge Labs to do a fun getting to know you activity with your class. I love the trading cards! We are using the trading cards for group work and partners. When the students completed their cards, we laminated them and hung them up for Back to School night.

Two Great Opportunities to Start Off the School Year

This is cross posted as Tech Dossier.
Best Buy is offering $2million dollars in technology education grants, click here to apply. Deadline is October 12th, 2008.

Sometime in late September, I will be offering a class called, "Becoming a Google Guru" to all faculty at Mohawk Ave and Sparta Middle School. It is a series of 12- 1 hr classes before school (7:45-8:45). Any teacher who attends all 12 classes will be entered is a raffle to win a sweet prize!
Here is an overview of the class:
Class #1 - Creating Google Account/iGoogle Homepage, Quick Overview of Everything Google and the Google Philosophy
Class #2 - Google Advanced Search/Scholar
Class #3 - Google Books - build your classroom library
Class #4 - Google Docs Part 1- word docs and presentations
Class #5 Google Docs Part 2 - spreadsheets, widgets, forms, calculator - geared towards math teachers
Class #6 Google News Archives
Class #7 Google Sites
Class #8 Google Maps/Earth ideas for the classroom - geared toward Social Studies teachers and science teachers
Class #9 Google Notebook
Class #10 Google News and News Alerts
Class #11 Custom Search Engines
Class #12 Even More Google
Dates are coming soon so stay tuned!

New Methods in Research

Next week I'll be teaching educators in Grades 5-12 about new methods in writing the research paper. Our high school is under construction and we will not have a media center this year. There needs to be many digital alternatives. I've put together a Google presentation outlining the course and all the links. Any feedback would be appreciated. Any sites I left off that are vital?

There is no plan and I am a planner.

I recently read The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need by Daniel H. Pink, the same author of A Whole New Mind.

It was my first graphic novel and a quick read and I think it is a great read for parents and students in high school or college. But it is especially a great read for new and seasoned teachers.

Pink's lists 6 essential lessons for thriving in the world of work. Here they are with my teacher twist on each one:
1. There is no plan. Snow days cancel field trips and last minute assemblies wreak havoc on your lesson plan. You're teaching 5th grade this year, but you might be teaching 8th grade next year.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses. Always focus on what students are doing right instead of wrong.
3. It's not about you. It's about the students. Pink states, "The most valuable people in any job bring out the best in others." That is exactly what we as teachers need to focus on.
4. Persistence trumps talent. Encourage and value the student who comes to every extra help session just as much as the ones who ace every test with their eyes close. Later in life, persistence counts more than talent.
5. Make excellent mistakes. "Too many people spend their time avoiding mistakes" and then they never do anything. We need to teach students that it is okay to make mistakes, "each time they make a mistake they get a little better and move a little closer to excellence" (Pink).
6. Leave an imprint. You don't want to be the teacher that everyone forgets, you want to be the teacher that everyone remembers, the teacher who gets emails from her students 30 years from now.

Using Technology in The Language Arts Classroom

Slide show for this week's class, "Using Technology in the Language Arts Classroom."
It is a two day class, three hours each day.
Quick overview of a variety of tools and sites for teachers of grades 5-12, but mostly grades 5-8.
Any suggestions or additions are much appreciated.

Portrait Illustration Maker : Free Illustration Generater!

Portrait Illustration Maker : Free Illustration Generater!
Procrastination at its best.

Assessment in E-Learning Wrap UP

This Slide Rocket Presentation is the final piece of my Assessment in E-Learning Course. We had to identify four assessment tools and how they will be used to assess learning in an online environment. Since I am using Moodle in the fall as well as Google Apps for Education I had many ideas, but narrowed it down to only 4 tools.