Seeing as the issues in Vancouver post-hockey were well covered & certainly disrupted my normal sleeping habits - I don't think I will dive into those any further. I will continue to keep my rose-coloured glasses on where Vancouver is concerned, and just hope (for many reasons!) that the Canucks aren't as successful next year!! Hee hee!
So...onto business!
When I was in the classroom - this would be the time of year that things would start to wind down & I would take my kids outside and read them books while stretched out under a tree - bliss! But, I was slowly gathering books, websites, blogs etc...for me to go through as part of my summer reading, so that I could bring something fresh to the classroom in the fall.
While it's a bit different this year, as I don't have a 'school' setting to bring new ideas to - I hope that some of the stuff I find might help some of you with your summer reading this year.
One website that I've been visiting a lot lately for some professional reading (as they tend to have interesting tweets) is Simple K-12 http://www.simplek12.com/
Their mandate is simple - to help teachers & students learn how to use technology. I particularly enjoy the tagline of 'online learning anytime, anywhere, even at home in your PJs'. As anyone who has ever been to any of my workshops knows that I talk about creating lessons and content at home in my PJs. (on on the dock at the family cottage, as the case may be)! So the amount of info here for online learning is great!
image courtesy Nicholas Žekulin
I am really enjoying so far the free e-books that they have on offer. My first download was their Interactive Whiteboards Workbook. I loved their suggestions for the new or veteran SMART Board user - especially the interactive website suggestions at the end of the workbook. I will be trying some of them out for sure!
I also enjoy how the focus is on things that the KIDS can do on the SMART Board. That was my focus for myself in my last few years in the classroom - getting the kids on the SMART Board more than me. The suggestions on this website are certainly student-focused - helping that 21st Century Learning come to life.
It's Friday! Which means another installment of my weekly Fresh Look Fridays blog post, where I review an interactive website that I think is great for use in the classroom.
Today's site is brought to you by the BBC. For those that are loyal followers of this Fresh Look Fridays series, you'll recall that I often can't say enough about interactive content put out by the BBC...those folks just seem to "get" it. I've featured some of their activities in numerous blog posts before including here, here and here.
The BBC Science Clips is another one of these fantastic sites, although the title is a bit misleading. "Clips" sounds like they're referring to videos, and that is definitely NOT the main focus of their website...instead, the main area is filled with a HUGE variety of interactive learning opportunities for your students to explore.
Initially broken down into age appropriate categories, each section contains 6 awesome activities. My favourite part? They're designed for students to explore certain topics, and contain guiding questions at the top to challenge students' thinking.
Take, for example, the "life cycles" module under Ages 9-10:
It has an immediate feedback structure for the first part, where if students drag the parts of the flower into the correct (or incorrect) box, the program either accepts the answer, or spits it back out. Students can click on the magnifying glass in each box for a mini tutorial on that flower part.
Under ages 7-8, check out the Light and Shadows activity. It's a little less structured, in terms of getting a right or wrong answer, and has some thought provoking questions at the top of the screen to guide students' thinking. Not sure if your students will be able to read all the directions? Have them click on the speaker to hear the questions read to them.
I especially love this website, because I see it as easily becoming a learning station on a SMART Board for a small group to work on together.
I'm going to preface this by apologizing to my colleagues in our Vancouver office for the following post. #DontShootTheMessenger!
But really, there's no way I could have possibly left their loss in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals alone. After all, I am a born and raised Saskatchewan Roughriders fan who had to suffer the barrage of jokes that came from our "too many men on the field" call that cost us the Grey Cup in 2009. So I feel that I have been dealt my fair share of "nanna nanna boo boos". And yes, I believe this qualifies me to poke as much fun at other hurting fans as I see fit! Two wrongs alway make a right, don't they? ;)
I thought about admonishing the so-called Canucks "fans" for the embarrassment their rioting ways have brought upon Vancouver (and if you've been living under a rock for the past 18 hours, you can catch up here and here). Then I realized that there are three things wrong with this mindset:
1. I'll forever get hate mail with protests of "but it was only a small handful of people, not the whole fan base!"
2. It's waaaaay too easy of a target
3. My Roughriders fan base infamously dumped manure on our kicker (McCallum's) neighbour's lawn after McCallum missed a critical 18 yard field goal in the 2004 playoffs. Yup - his neighbour's lawn. Riders fans tend to be a bit hopped up on Pilsner before, during and after a game that drastically lowers our IQ levels for a brief period of time. In our defense, this was slightly funnier and more of a direct attack than setting random people's cars on fire and looting a London Drugs for Pringles (Vancouver, I'm looking at you.)
So instead, I thought I'd try to compile the top 5 funniest tweets & status updates that I've seen in the past couple of days that take a good ol' fashioned clean hit on the Canucks and their loss. Not that clean hits were actually that prevelent in the series...
Enjoy, and remember that as a Flames fan, I was truly only rooting for Boston because of my ABC policy: Anyone But Canucks!
I just wanted to take a quick moment to introduce myself as a new contributor here on the blog; my name is Matt Hashizume and Vanessa was hoping to diversify the lineup a little bit and bring in some new perspectives so here I am! My sections of the blog will attempt to cover the big questions of the universe such as, "where is technology going in education?" and the much more exasperating "why can't Roberto Luongo stop a puck in Boston?"
I'm the Sharp's AV Education Consultant for Eastern Canada based out of our Toronto office, although, please don't hold that against me; I realize the galaxy does not revolve around Toronto (actual coordinates for the centre of the Milky Way: RA 17h45m40.04s, Dec -29° 00' 28.1). Rather, I am actually a transplanted born-and-raised Albertan who has wandered east in search of history, wisdom, and playoff hockey, and while there is a wealth and abundance of the first two, the third is strikingly absent from this city. Just like Vanessa, I'm a former teacher as well; I graduated from the University of Alberta (go Golden Bears/Pandas!) and I taught in Medicine Hat before making the journey out to Toronto.
As you may have already noted, I'm a bit prone to random tangents and sports related topics, so there will be a few more of those showing up during my tenure. I'm also a bit of a gadget enthusiast, hence my love of my job and getting to use technological gizmos all day, so you will probably see me posting a lot in regards to happenings of the day in science and technology in addition to the usual educational content, sports segues, and perhaps occassionally poking fun at the Toronto Maple Leafs and Sasksatchewan Roughriders (for which I will no doubt bring about the wrath of Vanessa).
That is about it for me at the moment, so I am going to call this one complete so I will be signing off and prepping for bigger and better posts in the future. Take care, Everyone, and I'll catch you later!
Just for fun...
"Congress will pass a law restricting public comment on the Internet to individuals who have spent a minimum of one hour actually accomplishing a specific task while on line."
Back in the day, I used to post some jokes, You Tube videos, etc...about teaching & technology on Fridays for some of my teachers called 'Funny Fridays'. At one point, a teacher recommended that I change it to Manic Mondays - as that's when people really needed a boost.
So, it works out perfectly that Vanessa posts stuff on Fridays, so that I can start to offer up a few things for a Manic Monday.
Also, like Vanessa, I tend to discover new and random wesbites on twitter, educational blogs etc...
It reminds me a lot of prezi.com - but this is like a super kid-friendly version.
I can imagine using it in the classroom for individual and group mind maps. There is a presentation mode, much like prezi, where the canvas sorts of flies around. Much more interesting & interactive than your average PowerPoint, in my opinion.
The other feature that I like, is that if kids have their own log in for the site (email is requried...) - then if a popplet is shared, kids can collaborate together, much like prezi meeting. You even see who has contributed to what, which is really useful for the teacher assessment side of things.
I know that I'm a visual learner, so I made a little video for how to make a popplet. You'll see how easy it would be for kids in the classroom to pick this one up.
People always ask me "how do you find the interactive websites that you promote during Fresh Look Fridays?" Usually my answer is either: a.) I did a really, really, REALLY good Google search or b.) Some awesome rockstar friend/tweep/client showed me their favourite and I passed it along to my readers.
Today's website was one of the rare instances where I actually just happened to stumble upon the site unintentionally, and struck gold. I'm sure you've all done this before. You know -- you click on a link on Twitter, read an educational blog, click on someone's comments, go to their site, which reminds you of a topic you've been meaning to Google, which leads you to click on more random links until VOILA! I super-de-duper site is staring you right in the face.
Enter today's recommended website: Interactivate. Basically, it's a site devoted to a myriad of Math related lessons and activities spanning most grade levels and math units.
Scroll through and check out some of the java applets that let you, and your students, explore various math concepts. I really like that within each activity, there are 4 separate sections: Learner, Activity, Help and Instructor...a bit of everything for everyone!
image courtesy Nicholas Žekulin
