From Legos to Raspberry Pi: The Most Creative Startups in Education Technology

Here is a brief and interesting article that was posted on Huffington Post...

From Legos to Raspberry Pi: The Most Creative Startups in Education Technology

Google Earth for Educators

My 5th grade students have become restless to try something new, so I have unleashed them on Google Earth. Within just a couple of weeks they have become pros at recording tours, using the flight simulators, and speaking to aliens on Mars (yes there really is an Instant messenger where students can interact with an alien).

In an effort to keep them engaged in this program for a while longer, I checked out Google Earth for Educators. It has lesson plans, ideas, tutorials and tips, a student showcase, a forum to talk to other teachers about using the program in class. 

Web 2.0 Tools/Ideas by Grade Level

In a recent Race to the Top training about using technology, the media specialist and I modified a Web 2.0 list created by the tech facilitator over at Adams Elementary. We tweaked the list and added some tools that we use. By no means is this a comprehensive list, but hopefully it will help you get started!

National Geographic Education (beta)

What a cool site! It's in the development phase, but it looks like it's going to be a powerful resource once it is completed.

Under the "Teacher Resources" section, the first activity that I came across was called Geography of a Pencil.  What a cool activity that incorporates (or can incorporate): science, social studies and math! Not to mention language arts and technology if you wanted to take it a step further.

I definitely look forward to seeing what this site becomes!

Thinkfinity: Professional Development Community: Helping Teachers Find Common Core Aligned Resources

Excellent tool for making sense of and finding tangible resources for implementing the Common Core. This blog post (link below) shows the State Standards Search Engine that has been created by Thinkfinity.org. The search engine allows you to search for your state's Common Core standards and has links for resources BY STANDARD. How nice! The search engine certainly makes it less overwhelming!

Full article:
Thinkfinity: Professional Development Community: Helping Teachers Find Common Core Aligned Resources

16 Ways Educators Use Pinterest

From: Online Universities Blog

Common Core resources cont'd!

So for now I'm on a roll, might as well share! Here's another great binder of K-5 resources for the Common Core and North Carolina Essential Standards.

Common Core & Essential Standards K–5 Resources

Free Common Core Resources

In an effort to learn more about the Common Core and gather more resources before the end of the year. I found a LiveBinder packed with resources, broken down by content standard and strand. It's really well organized and has a wealth of information!

Elementary Common Core

Thing Link

I recently stumbled across Thing Link, a free site that allows you to upload images or grab images from the internet and then assign tags. The neat thing about this is that you can take an image, like a picture of an animal for example, and then add "tags" which provide a description and can have links to other sites, YouTube videos and more!

This site is FREE (although there are additional features if you upgrade to Pro of course) and it has such potential for the classroom! Diagrams, infographics, explanations to anything you can think of!

New Livebinder on Useful Sites page about EdTech tools

New Livebinder on Useful Sites page about EdTech tools to use in the classroom. I will be continually adding to it! Enjoy!

Edtech

Easy Ed Tech: Explore.com

Easy Ed Tech recently posted Explore.org on their website and I just found it. What a cool site! Their site description? "philanthropic based media to champion the selfless acts of others, create a portal into the soul of humanity and inspire lifelong learning".


A site you must check out!

Useful Sites page

Today I helped a fellow colleague who is new to our school system with some websites and ideas that I commonly use or have used in my classes. I also relied on this today as I worked on a grant application while still teaching 6 classes K-5 throughout the school day. Normally I have very detailed lesson plans that span a couple of months, but every once in a while a hectic day or week pops up and I have a small amount of time to re-group and re-plan.

I have organized a TON of websites that I have used with my students into binders (via LiveBinders.com) and put them on the "Useful Sites" page at the top of this blog. Hopefully these binders and sites will help you as much as they have helped me. 

500+ Creative Lessons To Teach Almost Anything | Edudemic

I found this on my new favorite social bookmarking site, Pinterest, and decided it was just too good to pass up. This post is an oldie but a goodie. Like the title says, it has a TON of creative lessons.
500+ Creative Lessons To Teach Almost Anything | Edudemic

Google in Education- For Teachers

Google  recently redesigned their education site and I finally had time to sit down and take a look at it. Overall the site is well organized and is divided into 3 categories: Classroom Tools, Professional Development, and Student Showcase and Opportunities. The Classroom Tools page features Google Apps, Chromebooks, lesson plans, and classroom videos. Each page is laid out in a clear and concise manner, allowing you to easily find what you are looking for. My favorite page is the educator resources page, which plainly displays resources into categories such as "Collaborate and Connect" and "Explore the World".

livebinders4teachers

Live Binders 4 Teachers has a very well-organized selection of binders organized by grade levels, subject areas, etc. This website also has resources for Web 2.0 tools for teachers, counselors, and parents.

http://livebinders4teachers.pbworks.com/w/page/574743/FrontPage

Magic Tree House

Some of the best websites I come across are shared with me by students. Mary Pope Osbourne, author of the Magic Tree House series, has an excellent and attractive website. The site provides resources and activities that  enrich her books. There is also a teacher resources section that organizes all of the resources by book!

Magic Tree House Website

Web Search Strategies in Plain English

One of my colleagues in my PLT (professional learning team) shared this video with our group. It is excellent! It   explains (and shows) how search engines work and provides useful tips on how to search for something. I haven't tried it out on my 4th and 5th graders yet, but I imagine it will be helpful for students in grades 2-12. It's also helpful to ANYONE with introductory web searching skills.

NCDPI's Information Technology Toolkit

I'm not sure what other states started a new information and technology skills curriculum ,but North Carolina transitioned into a new one at the beginning of the 2011-12 year. With this new curriculum comes a deeper responsibility to teachers. Because we are in the day and age of a constant information flow, technology teachers and media specialists can no longer teach all of their curriculum in a "specials" class because there just isn't enough time/resources.

NCDPI has released a new site with plenty of great resources to get started: http://informationtechnologytoolkit.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/home

PBS Reading Elementary

PBS Education might as well hire me on to their marketing team because I feel like I keep talking about their resources. But honestly, they're awesome. I recently found on the PBS Kids Island-Teachers page a graphic of their Literacy Framework for Kindergarten through 3rd grade.

The graphic gives a complete breakdown of the individual skills and the cool part is that you can click on the colored blocks and it takes you directly to the lesson/video/activity for that specific skill!

PBS Kids Word of the Day

The PBS Kids Island: Raising Readers site posts a "Word of the Day" every day. The word of the day features a definition, an option for the definition to be read aloud, and a brief entertaining video to help children understand the definition of the word.