CUE 2011

Palm Springs is engaging Ed Tech leaders with great workshops, keynotes, and vendors hall. I am here at The CUE Conference as a learner and presenter. I come here for inspiration and innovation and leave with a brain spinning with ideas and plans. If you haven't already, take a look at CUE http://cue.org. Check out http://kerncue.org for more updates from Kern CUE on fantastic things we have seen here at the CUE Conference.

Updates from Other Great Blogs

I was looking through my PLN blogs and saw a couple websites that I wanted to share.
From Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers-
Rocks and Weathering - a great interactive activity to use with students to learn about rocks.  It shows how different types of rocks form and provides for students to create, inspect, and destroy rocks using different tools.  It also can be captioned (see top menu of website) for those who are Deaf, hard of hearing, ESL, or simply like the captions.  This could be used on individual computers or as an interactive whiteboard activity.


From Digital Goonies -
Wikicards.net is a great way to organize your information and be able to share it with others.  You can create as many cards as you want and organize them into groups.  You can put links, jpegs, videos on the cards and group them under one heading.  You could use this to build your resources for a unit and then share it with your fellow teachers.   Here is an example of using Wikicards from Digital Goonies.

That's all for now.   I am attending two conferences in the next two weeks and hope to have more to share!  CAL-ED for Deaf Educators in California and CUE - Computer Using Educators big conference in Palm Springs! 

Literacy Centers and Games Based Learning

I was recently catching up on my Twitter PLN. *Quick explanation for those not yet using Twitter to develop professional ideas - I follow #edchat, #spedchat, #edtech, #technology, #kerncue as well as some others to share and get ideas with other educators. * I came across this teacher blog, Better Than Worksheets  (http://www.betterthanworksheets.com/ ).  The blog is written by two teachers, Julie Johnson and Patrick Johnson. 

I was looking around and found two other wonderful parts to this blog, Pop Lit Station and Game Based Learning, developed by Julie.  Julie has some create ideas and has taken action to get them implemented.  (Way to go, Julie!!)  Games Based Learning has some great links and activities to do with your students to develop language, math, Science, PE, and other subject area skills through playing some Wii games.

Pop Lit Station is for the teachers/students in Julie's district, although others may view, please read the note to Out of School Visitors.  Julie uses videos and Google forms with activities for students to complete.  The responses are collected on a spreadsheet for Julie to view and give the students credit for completing.  What a great idea! 

Julie addresses the district standards in creating her activities.  The point to both of these sites is to encourage teachers to try new things to reach students who struggle in school.  Although Special Ed and ESL students could benefit especially, ALL students would benefit from using these approaches.

I think I am going to try out these ideas.  I'll get back to you!

A Field Trip to a State Park WITHOUT the Travel!

An out of town trip for your class?  Doesn't happen very often in this age of restricted budgets.  Even if you do have the funds, traveling more than a few hours wouldn't be possible... until now!

Have you heard of PORTS? Parks Online Resources for Teachers and Students is a great program from California State Parks that brings resources, lesson plans, and videoconferences to teachers and students.  Check out their website (http://ports.parks.ca.gov/ ) for more information on specific programs and resources that they can offer you.  In most cases, they can even lend you the equipment needed for the videoconferencing.

Imagine learning about plants and animals (see your state standards) and being able to take your students on a field trip led by naturalist to make discoveries. 

Check it out and get more information by contacting one of the program managers on the right side menu.  I'm excited to say that my class will be taking a trip to the Redwoods in a couple weeks - via videoconferencing.  I will report back in a couple weeks on how it went!

Better Efficiency? Better Time Management? YOU BET!

I was taking time to read up on my Twitter feeds and working on my own Professional Learning Network when I came across 50 Ways to Use Google Apps in the Classroom, a presentation being done at the TCEA Conference.  I followed the link to the presentation (http://ht.ly/3REm8  ) and was happy with what I saw; Great Ideas!

We recently held a Google for Educators Mini-Workshop @ Kern CUE presented by Jim Ross and Nick Rowland.  So the thought of furthering the wealth of information was on my mind, too. 

I am a Google Apps user and use the Gmail, Documents, Calendar for both my own classroom, personal life, and for the organization Kern CUE.  There is so much in Google Apps for educators to use for themselves and also for their students.  And Google Apps gives you and your students a "universal" word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation program that requires only internet access.  You can even access Google apps from your smartphone.

Take a look at this presentation.  It has links and further explanations within the presentation.  Feel free to comment on how you have been using Google Apps or how you hope to use it in the future!

(And by the way, I am receiving no monetary compensation for telling you about Google or any other websites or books that I mention.)
Thanks to RT by EdTechSandyK for this link!

Teaching about Money: Earning, Saving, Spending for elementary

Check out Planet Orange for activities on teaching about money:  from earning and saving, to spending and credit.  There are both online and offline activities.  Teachers can download a large activity book (pdf) and lesson plans for grades 1-7.  You can even request hardcopies from ING with a phone number in the front of the book.    The activity book and the website are developed by ING DIRECT.  Vocabulary building and money math activities are seen throughout the lessons, as well as reading for information and problem-solving.  It's a great FREE resource with great ways for kids to learn about money. On the Teacher Resource page, teachers can look up lessons and related state standards to use while lesson planning.
There is a parent permission slip to register kids to use the website (either in school or at home).  For the online activities, the characters talk, but captions are provided.  An online dictionary of important vocabulary is provided that students can click on to get more information about a word they don't know.  Children earn money for completing the online activities and spend money to travel to the different activities.Online activities could be done as an interactive whiteboard activity if you wish. Or you could provide this as an at-home activity suggestion to parents.

Online, students travel to different places and learn about money by reading and/or listening to the information. Of course, they will need to spend money on purchasing fuel! Students earn Obux for completing the lesson and in each section there is a comprehension quiz.  Students may take on jobs to earn more money to continue their travels.  They may also spend some money on games, decorations, or even a robot pet.

This site offers lots of neat activities and resources for teachers about something that everyone needs to learn about.. MONEY!

(http://orangekids.com/ )
Via Richard Byrne @ Free Technology for Teachers

And she's back!

I know it's been a couple months, but I'm back and ready to share more things that I have found around the web.  Check out the Lawrence Hall of Science Kids Site for some great activities and teacher resources for Science.  Very Cool!   While looking for interactives and activities for the Living Things Unit, I also found Animal Planet has a lot a great resources for students and teachers.  Be sure to check under the Wild Animals A-Z for great info for teaching.  More coming! 

I have been busy with our local CUE affiliate for the past couple months, working on our 2nd annual Kern CUE Technology Conference that we held in November.  If you are an educator interested in using technology, check out the websites.

My class has also been fundraising to attend Camp KEEP (Kern Environmental Education Program)  We will be going to stay at Camp KEEP Ocean next week and learning great things about the environment and the living things in it. 

I have been trying to catch up on my list of online resources, so more to come!
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011 - May it find you and your family happy, healthy, and prosperous!