Instructional Technology Specialist

ClassTools.net is a tremendous site with tools that are very easy to use and educationally sound.  They are tools that can be integrated into any curriculum area and any topic. Some of the tools are more primary based and some are more for intermediate.  If you don’t take a moment to check this one out you will be missing a gold mine!

• Arcade Game Generator!
• Flashcard Generator [new]
• Countdown Timer
• Random Name Picker
• Dustbin Game
• Post It
• Diamond 9
• Fishbone (Ishikawa)
• Venn Diagram [updated]
• Animated Book [new]
• Timeline
• Lights Out
• Target
• Hamburger
• Living Graph
• Learning Cycle
• Jigsaw Diagram
• Priority Chart
• Source Analyser

http://classtools.net/

***If you are a member of my school district and have not already done so will you please take a quick moment to let me know you saw this post?  You can either add a comment at the bottom or shoot me a quick email.  I would like to identify about how many people are viewing this blog from my district.  Thank you!!!

Here are some practice sites and resource sites on the topic figurative language.

http://www.quia.com/hm/80390.html

http://www.gamequarium.com/figurativelanguage.html

http://www.berghuis.co.nz/abiator/lang/interlangindex.html Multiple Choice and Matching

http://languagearts.pppst.com/figurative.html

http://edhelper.com/language/Similes_and_Metaphors.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112392/similepractice.html

http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz2436841be67e8.html

***If you are a member of my school district and have not already done so will you please take a quick moment to let me know you saw this post?  You can either add a comment at the bottom or shoot me a quick email.  I would like to identify about how many people are viewing this blog from my district.  Thank you!!!

March is an exciting month in Alaska.  Children across the country and around the world will be following the famous dog sled race, the Iditarod.  Here are some websites to help classroom teachers integrate the Iditarod into their curriculum.

http://www.iditarod.com/

List of mushers and links to their websites to track them:
http://www.iditarod.com/race/musherlisting.html

http://backstage-iditarod.blogspot.com/

Collaborative Classroom Project:
http://iditarod-collaborative-project.wikispaces.com/

Website Suggestions and Classroom Project
https://motivatewithmushers.wikispaces.com/RESOURCES

Up to date information blogged:
http://www.iditablog.com/

http://www.kigluaitadventures.com/virtualmushing

http://www.idita-read.org/

http://questgarden.com/54/75/3/080119190853/

http://www.workingdogweb.com/Iditarod.htm

http://dwb.adn.com/iditarod//

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/Courses/EDTEC670/Cardboard/Board/M/mushtheiditarodgame/mush.htm

http://mushing.bssd.org/

PIctures and narrative along the trail of 2008 Iditarod
http://www.buserdog.com/

http://www.iditarod.com/teachers/lessons.html

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/iditarod/

http://alaskacam.com/

http://www.education-world.com/a_special/march.shtml Scroll to the bottom of the page

http://surfaquarium.com/eIditarod/ Registration Required

http://www.ultimateiditarod.com/teachers.htm

http://www.dogsled.com/

http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=7728 List of books on the Iditarod

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/iditarod/index.htm

You can follow the Iditarod on Twitter.  http://twitter.com/iditarod
Twitter is a microblogging environment where you can get short updates throughout the day.  You have to register but it is free.  There is a desktop application that allows your updates to show up automatically.  It is called twirl http://www.twhirl.org/.  Feel free to follow me on twitter as well.  My twitter name is @lsadler.

If you are a member of my school district and have not already done so will you please take a quick moment to let me know you saw this post?  You can either add a comment at the bottom or shoot me a quick email.  I would like to identify about how many people are viewing this blog from my district.  Thank you!!!

Graphing and interpreting data are concepts found on state assessments as well as local assessments beginning with primary grades.  Here are some online resources to help teachers cover and revisit this topic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/activities/modemedianmean.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/handlingdata/numericalanalysis/mean/
http://www.hbschool.com/activity/elab2004/gr4/25.html
http://tinyurl.com/cff7qd
http://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/toc_vol8.html
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/03/lp293-02.shtml
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/book8/bk8i5/bk8_5i2.htm

http://math.pppst.com/dataanalysis.html PowerPoints as well as interactive sites for kids and lesson plans for teachers.  Thanks to my twitter friend, @celestehopkins for bringing this one to my attention!

If you are a member of my school district will you please take a quick moment to let me know you saw this post?  You can either add a comment at the bottom or shoot me a quick email.  I would like to identify about how many people are viewing this blog from my district.  Thank you!!!

These are some free timeline tools that can be used in the classroom.  Students can create a timeline in conjunction with biographies, historical times, ancient civilizations, story of their life, life cycles, etc.

http://www.dipity.com/

http://www.timetoast.com/

http://mnemograph.com/

http://lifesnapz.com/

http://classtools.net/ Many other tools as well

http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/materials/timelines/

http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/timeline/ Many other tools available

In our district every classroom teacher also has Kidspiration that would work well for timelines.

There are so many inventive ways students can share what they have learned. This is one of the most creative I have seen for quite some time.  The teacher must register, but it is free and up to 200 students can log into a teacher’s account to create a glog (Teachers get an educator account.  Look at the bottom right hand side to register for educator account).

A glog is a poster.  There are many bubbles and stickers as well as backgrounds to help your students create their page.  The process of uploading pictures is easy if that is an option you want your students to do.  I created a sample with the topic biomes.  Topics this would work for include:

Book Reports
Rules Poster
Animal Poster
Arctic Animal Poster
Nervous System
Biomes
Indian Tribes
Ancient Civilizations
Geographical Locations such as regions of US

Here is a link to directions on how to use glogster.  Teachers can create an educational account and request logins for up to 100 students without the need for email addresses.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfrt3c2h_18f2qn3mdt

Image Source: http://www.glogster.com/
created by Laura Sadler

This online tool can be a new and interesting way for your students to present what they have learned about a topic.  They can write their own newspaper article and print it to look like a real newspaper clipping.  Kids love being able to use these kinds of tools to share what they’ve learned!

Image Source:http://www.fodey.com/

Kansas Day is January 29.  This is a wonderful website with tons of links to information about Kansas Day.

http://www.skyways.org/KSL/Ref/misc/web/kansasday.html

Image Source: http://www.kslib.info/symbols.html

As I walked through one of my elementary buildings today I was completely taken with how well the teachers are integrating technology.  Kindergarteners were listening to a CD of educational music.  First graders were using a document reader to share money from various countries.  Second grade teacher was setting up the interactive whiteboard for a lesson when her kids returned from recess.  Third grade was editing a writing sample with a document reader.  A fifth grade teacher emailed me about how wonderful her new webcam is to show fraction manipulatives.  Sixth grade was using a document reader with a splitter to two classrooms to provide direct instruction to two rooms simultaneously.

Three years ago when I walked through my schools there would be no evidence of technology exept the occasional music and/or overhead projector.

I am impressed with the growth our district has made in this field and I am proud of my teachers.

One of the ways I learn about great resources is by following fellow educators’ blogs.  One of my favorite blogs is http://www.ncs-tech.org/?p=2515

It was on this blog that I learned about this science resource.  It is a visual resource for learning about the human body.  Please be aware. This is an anotomically correct website.  Please preview the resource before viewing in front of your class to make sure you are showing only what you want to show.

Image Source:  http://www.visiblebody.com/start