Teaching with Technology » Links

History on Tap Blog

Tina Coffey — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:20:02 +0000

The History on Tap blog is a great place to find resources that match Virginia’s SOLs for Social Studies and History, including games, foldables, presentations, study sheets, and more. It has resources for K-12, including tons of great things for VA Studies. It is updated and maintained by a Lisa Pennington, a Social Studies Specialist in Portsmouth, VA. If you teach social studies content, check it out!

Projects, Projects, Projects

Tina Coffey — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:21:48 +0000

This article is a follow up to yesterday’s inservice at Clearbrook. We discussed Global Projects, Using Skype, Wiki Ideas, and Geocaching and Geobugs. Wow, that was a lot of stuff!

Shelia Terry from Virginia Beach was able to skype with us and talk a little about her use with Skype with her students there. She gave us some great information about skype, and send us a link to more Skype info on her wiki!

We also talked a lot about some existing global projects you can join. One of the project places I highlighted was the site by Jen Wagner. I love her projects!!

The other project I mentioned by name was the skype project called Mission 00 Rain about Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I remember that a few of you were interested in it as well. It’s for grades 1-3, but you need to register by Oct. 10!

Finally, we did some geocaching and talked about geobugs. In case you all are interested in geocaching for fun, the geocaching site is www.geocaching.com. You can create an account for free, and download the locations of caches to many types of gps units. The newer ones for cars will even let you do this. It’s tons of fun, and they are EVERYWHERE…so it’s also great for family trips or vacations.

If you and your class want to track the Big Lick Geobug, here’s it’s story.
http://tcoffey.edublogs.org/2009/06/03/geobugs/

Finally, an Oliver K. Woodman Geobug will be leaving Roanoke in the next few weeks. He’s heading to Redcrest, California. If you’ve read the book, The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman, you’ll know why! Let me know if you want me to come to your class, show a geobug, and get your started following him too. :)

Phillip Martin Clip Art

Tina Coffey — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:27:40 +0000

As I sit here working on a project that requires some clipart, I’m reminded of my favorite FREE clipart site of all time for school projects. I’m not sure if you know about it already, but just in case you don’t, here it is:

Phillip Martin Clip Art

You can find CUTE, elementary clipart for all subject areas, and even graphics that match the SOLs in a cute way. I love it!

Just in case you’ve never downloaded clipart from a website before, here’s how you do it:

Left click on the small version of the image (so you can view it in it’s largest form).
Right click on the large form of the image.
Choose “Save Picture As” or “Save Image As”
Find a spot to save it on your computer. Remember where you put it so you can find it again.
Click Save.

Phillip Martin, the artist, also creates cute powerpoints based on school subjects. You might want to check them out while looking at his site.

(Phillip Martin allows you to use this clipart free for your classroom, newsletters, and other non-profit things…just as long as you do not add it to other clip art collections. Please honor his request when using these wonderful resources.)

Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Tina Coffey — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:00:58 +0000

Saturday be Talk Like a Pirate Day, so you might want t’ celebrate Friday or Monday with sprogs. Here’s some thin’s t’ get you started…

Links:

The Orginial Talk Like a Pirate Day Website

English to Pirate Translator (a must have for this important day)

Need some Pirate facts? Take a look at this wiki, ARR Pirates, created by Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Graders!

Pirate Challenge Geography Game (for the older sprogs)!

Walk the Plank! Game (Compound Words)

A Fun Button

Pirate Numbers (K-1)

Pirate Crafts (Great hat here)

Welcome Back with Wordle!

Tina Coffey — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:42:48 +0000

Want an easy back to school activity that will help you begin to know your students? Try Wordle! Here’s an example of an About Me activity using it. Please remember to use only first names if you do this with your students.

The instructional ideas for this resource are endless. You can find some of these ideas in this post, Wordle Word Clouds. I also suggest taking a look at the ideas Tom Barrett has collected from many other educators below:

Finally, you may want to check out Jen Wagner’s Guess the Wordle Wiki. There she posts different Wordles throughout the week, and students are encouraged to guess their subject using the words in the Wordle (Monday is an easy wordle, Wednesday is a little harder, Friday is the hardest). She will also be adding a Thursday Wordle that will be about a book (librarians, this might appeal to you)!

If you have your students create Wordles, make sure you direct them to this exact URL (http://www.wordle.net/create) so they bypass the gallery of other Wordles. While most of the examples in the gallery are usually okay, from time to time inappropriate words do appear there. By going straight to the “Create” area, you lessen the chance that students run across inappropriate words. :)

If you have never used Wordle before and would like some help as you explore it with your students, please contact me!