sutton007

The newest assignment in the 30 Day Teacher Blog Challenge is adding different media to your blog. Although I am new to the blogging scene, I have often inserted different media types into my classroom website . Items ranging from student created VoiceThreads and Xtranormal Videos, homemade Youtube Videos and Animoto and PhotoPeach Slide Shows have become regular visitors to our classroom website. (By clicking on the links you will see how these sites have been used in a fourth grade class.) I'm sure that many people have embedded the media mentioned above. So I decided I would try to find something different to embed. Recently I discovered Blabberize . I also decided that I would try it in combination with my Avatar assignment. The 'Welcome Message' at the beginning of my blog was created using Blabberize and Build Your Wild Self . (Sometimes it takes a while for Blabberize to load - I was having trouble replaying my creation - hope it works for you.) Al...

Coypright-Shmopyright? Not really so! Since I’m a teacher, I've mostly assumed that I don’t have to worry about ‘ Copyright '. Burying my head in the sand doesn’t excuse me from the law and rather perpetuates the problem of copyright issues. In one of my graduate classes I was first (and formerly) introduced to the issues of copyright and fair use. It made me realize that we all need to be cognizant and aware of the Copyright protections as well as the Fair Use rules in education (and elsewhere). While using images and multimedia in the classroom is key to helping my students make connections to what they are learning (please see Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age by David Rose & Anne Meyer ), I still need to be responsible and make sure that I am abiding by the rules. No longer can I bury my head in the sand as before. A great site that explains copyright is from University of Maryland University College . A great site ...

"No School - All Schools - Boston" "No School - All Schools - Canton" "No School - All Schools - Walpole" Yippee! That's the one! I remember sitting in front of the television or listening to the radio with my brothers and sisters waiting for the No School - All School announcement! Living in the "W" town our anticipation kept building and building after each letter of the alphabet. Often times there would be several commercial breaks which would produce loud groans of "Oh No" and "Not again!" There is something magical about a Snow Day off from School - UNLESS you are a parent. Today, with so many parents working it's a scramble to find someone to be with the kids. Superintendents often cancel schools early (even before the snow falls) in an effort to help parents make arrangements for the day. That being said - there are many parents that are home with the kids and they may be wondering "what can we do tod...

They're Reading - Now What? What are the strategies that you employ while your students are reading? Is there a way to incorporate technology as a way to help students with their comprehension? Focusing on making connections and activating prior knowledge DURING reading is just as important as tapping into the prior knowledge BEFORE reading . Check out these ' during reading ' ideas at All America Re ads . You probably already utilize many of these tactics. Using graphic organizers helps our students solidify their understanding through pictorial or structural designs. They aid our student's comprehension. One way to add a new twist to graphic organizers is to pair these time-tested tools with technology. Excel Spreadsheet: An Excel spreadsheet , for example could be created and filled in while reading. The example I have created below is about the characters in our reading story. Students can complete the charts individually, with a partner or whole group. ...

Back in November or December I had read about the " 30 Day Kick Start Your Blogging " Challenge. I thought that it might be nice to start blogging, but quite honestly I was afraid to take the Challenge in the event I couldn't do the entire 30 days. So I decided I would try to create my own blog on my own. That was the beginning of my blog, Teaching is Elementary, which is a professional blog. Not really sure the direction it would take, but it was my intention to share some stories, some experiences and some resources. Why did you join the Teacher Challenge’s 30 Days to Kick Starting your Blogging? Just yesterday I got an email from a friend of mine (thanks Cheryl) asking me to try the challenge. So, I here I am trying my hand with the hopes that I'll be able to keep up with everyone. I am always advising my students to take a risk in the classroom and I guess I'm taking my own advice. Why do you want to learn more about blogging? I wonder...

Do you remember “Back to the Future?” with Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd? The unusual time machine Doc Brown rigged up was a Delorean car! It was just on T.V. last week. Why didn’t I think to use a clip from that movie as a way to activate my students' prior knowledge about time traveling? Or use a clip with Phineas and Ferb? Or share a clip from the Magic School Bus Goes Back in Time? These clips would have certainly engaged my students and had them really thinking about our next r eading story instead of me asking them: “Do you know anything about time machines?” Activating Prior-Knowledge or Building Background Knowledge is a ‘must’ and just good teaching practice for building comprehension. It can be done before, during and after reading in any content area. According to Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann “ It has been known for some time that one of the most effective ways to improve comprehension is to "activate mental files" b...