Delicious.com

I am a huge fan of organization and beautiful things.  Naturally, I am so drawn to pinterest.com and it's my all time favorite website.  However, Delicious.com could rival pinterest any day.  Especially for students to have a space where they can remember things that helped them learn, or inspired them, I would love to use this in a high school classroom. 

Students can make different stacks of articles they read, make bucket lists, and pretty much compile striking information on the internet that is important to them. 

GeoGebra

Before I changed my major in college to Psychology and decided to get my elementary teaching certification, I was planning on majoring in math.  I love math and I always have, and now that love has translated into a love of teaching math to my little ones.  I love thinking about the various ways that they will try and solve problems and I love trying to understand why some students struggle with math and why it comes easy to others.  Especially for older students, when computations are more difficult, I think it's wonderful that there's a free software that blossoming mathematicians can use online. 

GeoGebra has a ton of tools that students can use while learning various branches of math.  There are interactive graphics, algebra, and spreadsheets.

Bubbl.us

We are all familiar with graphic organizers and the benefits they have on students who learn differently and appreciate the uses of technology.

Bubblus is a beautiful website that displays really colorful mind maps online.  Students and teachers can use it to make complex webs. I like how easy the website is to navigate and how simple the overall look is.  All grades can probably use this tool to make maps.  You can choose the colors and different formats of the bubbles.  Here is an example of a Bubbl.us map:

My Attempt at a Site

Tentative Lesson Plan?

I love teaching kids geometry, especially SHAPES!  I think there are also many technological opportunities that come about with that kind of lesson.


A few things that kids can do with technology and shapes are:
-take pictures of shapes around the classroom/school grounds
-build (maybe even with SketchUp)
-make a virtual poster for each shape with flags,buildings, and facts about that shape

Quizlet

Online flashcards=genius. 

Quizlet.com is a brilliant website where flashcards rule.  Primarily it has been used for learning languages, but not basically anything can become a flashing opportunity.  If you are an organized, control-freak, you can create your own flashcards, or you can simply search to see if the particular subject you're interested in has been created already.  The subjects even include SAT preparation. 

TED

If you're looking for that perfect motivational speech to show to your Senior class graduates when they have an acute case of "senioritis," try finding one on TED to inspire them for the college road ahead. 

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading (www.ted.com) is a collection of riveting speeches and talks given by great orators from around the world.  It operates similarly to any other video viewing website like Youtube, but I like how the videos can be organized by emotion.  Students and teachers can find videos that persuasive, courageous, ingenious, fascinating, inspiring, beautiful, funny, or informative.  Even without one of these intended outcomes, I think this can be a good tool to discuss with kids what makes a great presentation.  It would be excellent in a public speaking class, but helpful, really, to any class where kids have to get up in front of an audience.  

Glogster EDU

Remember the amount of effort that you, and perhaps your parents, put into creating dramatic posters for various projects and science fair events?  This can become a thing of the past with the creation of online posters.

GlogsterEDU is a tool that students and teachers can use to display a multitude of information about a particular subject.  They can put videos, pictures, words, links, or just about anything to a giant digital poster and then present it to their classmates.

Pin me!

Here is a simple QR code that is linked to my Pinterest account (ALSO a great tool for teachers)

My Corner of the PLN World

I have a twitter.  I mainly use it to update friends on the small silly moments that occur in my day-to-day life, some of which involve the classroom.  I use it primarily for entertainment and keeping up with local businesses.  I had never given much thought to how Twitter could be used as a personal learning network until reading Shelly Terrell's blog.  It turns out that Twitter can be used for many educational and professional opportunities.  


I think that if I were to create a professional Twitter to enhance my teaching and classroom..yes, shocking...my personal and professional worlds DO need space..that I would start by making a name like 1stgradepioneer, since I'm a new teacher.  I would try and research great people to follow and maybe tweet @ them, so they can follow me and see questions that I might have that arise while I'm teaching.  Come to think of it, my teacher twitter might be primarily questions, as I'm not sure my wisdom has quite reached a helpful level to others...but hey!  You never know!


One of the interesting things about our society...I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing, is that it can be hard to have an original idea.  However, in this case, I would be super glad to probably not be the first teacher to grab a Twitter account.  With this in mind, I would Google great teachers that already have twitters to follow.  I'm sure there are already PLNs out there that I could attach myself too.


I like organization and I like keeping my apps and different profiles on the internet to a minimum, so it's helpful that I already have a twitter and wouldn't need yet another tab on my toolbar to keep all my websites visible.  

Evernote

An important learning strategy to teach students is to keep track of one's thinking and learning processes.  Meta-cognition is imperative to becoming a great learner.  Note taking is a simple skill that helps with meta-cognition.  But how can students keep notes of all the websites they might visit trying to find sources for a research paper?

Enter Evernote.  Essentially, a student can browse the internet for information, sources, articles, pictures, etc., and store all the cool stuff they find on this app.  They can even save audio selections.  A really cool feature is that the information is then stored on their laptops, iPhones, iPads, etc., due to cloud technology.  If students are making a historical timeline together in groups, they can also share all of the notes they collect.  If they are going on a class field trip, they can store maps, itineraries and, if perhaps they are visiting a forest, animal facts and information.

Survey Monkey

Sometimes, especially in the older years, kids are very shy and apprehensive about honesty about touchy subjects like bullying and social situations.  Here's an example of a way that teachers can get honest opinions from students. 

Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey has been around for 15 years now!  One can make a survey in any subject area and share it through e-mail or through a website, etc.  Students can make surveys if they are giving a presentation and want to "poll" the class.  Teachers can use surveys as a fun way to quiz students or to collect information students might not want to share elsewhere. 

A simple educational survey.

Wordle

Some students are extremely visual.  A great way to differentiate instruction and really draw students in is to get their eyes engaged on something other than straight text or boring worksheets.  Making a really fun visual for them to synthesize information is a great tool.

Essentially, Wordle takes a bunch of words and groups them together in a visually appealing graphic that gives more attention to the most frequent words and less attention to less used words.  This could be a great tool if the students are doing a character description and they want to see the general profile of a story character that the students came up with on their own. 

Here is a great example of a wordle for Mr. Darcy from the beloved Pride and Prejudice.