MELSA

I was really happy to be reminded of all the great resources available on Melsa.org last night at Metronet. My students are working on some biographical research and I was able to direct them to the Biography Resource Center for a great source of information today.

Here's the link if you missed it last night: http://find.galenet.com/menu/commonmenu.do?userGroupName=mnkvictoria

Blogging backlog

Wow! Are any of you like me and feeling a little behind in doing your "Thing" assignments? I've really lost lots of valuable Metronet time since my student teacher left!
I'm looking forward to our nice long break at Christmas to try to get a couple more of my things finished.
Happy holidays everyone!

Tagedu

I checked out a new search engine site that is supposed to be a helpful resource for teachers, it's called http://www.tagedu.com/
After a few attempts to find teaching resources related to "Louis XIV" and then "Versailles" and finally just "World History", I didn't receive ANY hits. I'm not convinced this is a particularly helpful site. I think I'll stick with Delicious for the time being.

Letter to our next president

Hi bloggers,

I got another great idea from the Free technology for teachers site and I thought I'd share. The idea is to have students write a letter to our next president identifying issues and concerns that the student feels are critical for our nation.

I typed up a rubric and gave students a sample letter today. I think the idea would work well in a Social Studies or Language Arts class.

Election resource

Hello Metronet gang. Here's an interesting link to get students a little more interested in the campaign process. I'm going to give it a try next week. http://current.com/topics/88849451_election_night_2008

With my student teacher finishing his time here tomorrow, I'm curious when I'll make time to do my blogging and keep working on my "Things", but I'll give it my best shot!

Comments on Thing 4

I just finished reading and doing Thing 4 from the 23 Things list. I'll make a few comments on the On-line productivity tools.
First, I've been using igoogle as my customizable homepage. I love the streamlined and efficient nature of using this page. It's a real time-saver and I just read through the things that interest me most if I'm pinched for time.

While doing my Thing 4 assignments, I checked out google calendar and even set up an account and entered an appointment. I like the calendar but I don't know that I'll use it for the time being becuase I already keep a calendar for my students on my rSchool account and I keep my personal/professional calendars in my Outlook. I feel that keeping an additional calendar at this point is redundant. I may change my mind about that in the future.

Thing 2 and RSS readers

I just realized that I did "Thing 2" but forgot to blog about it. Now that I'm using it every day, I LOVE Google Reader. I've found several terrific sites on the RSS feed "Technology for Teachers".
It's quick and simple to check Google Reader once or twice each day and read things that look interesting &/or relevant to teaching World History. Today I'll be looking for good resourses on the presidential election to use in my classroom. I'll keep you posted on any great finds.

Power Point Palooza

http://pptpalooza.net/

Social Studies teachers might be interested in this site. It has many "ready made" power points for history and global studies type classes. I was looking for a power point on the Age of Exploration and found a very well done slide show at this site.

P.S. I found this site because of the "Free Technology for Teachers" RSS feed that Travis and Sarah showed us all recently. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I recommend it as well. Here's the link:
http://freetech4teachers.blogspot.com/

Wordle plan for my E.L.L. class

I've made a lesson plan to incorporate the wordle website into my lesson plan for Monday. I teach one section of World History to an all E.L.L. (English Language Learners) class. Many are struggling to learn to write and even speak in English. On Monday, they are composing paragraphs to wrap up a Social Studies unit we've been studying about Islamic Empires.

After students write paragraphs summarizing important facts about two Islamic Empires, I'm having them cut and paste their paragraphs into the Wordle site and then print them. We'll talk about which words they see appearing in their word clouds and why they appear prominently (which I understand is all about the frequency of certain words in the text they entered). My hope is that this will be a fun way to talk about improving their writing skills. I'll keep you all posted how things go after Monday's lesson.

Delicious and This Day In History

Today I learned how to add other users to my Delicious account which is really cool because I can see what other teachers are using and saving too...seems like a potential time-saver!

Another cool thing from today's Metronet class was hearing from Sarah B. how to find little video clips on the History Channel about "On This Day In History". I'm frequently looking for simple and interesting ways to add technology to my lesson plans, so I'm sure I'll be using this clip in the future. Here's the link if anyone is interested in exploring it.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do

Top 10 reasons to use a blog in the classroom

I just watched the YouTube video that had students describe why they like using blogs in the classroom. A couple of the more compelling comments to me were that students like the interactive nature of blogs and also that blogging allows otherwise reluctant students an alternative way to classroom participation.

I'm often looking for ways to get more students to participate in classroom discussions. I think that a classroom blog is a good way to get shy/quiet students to be more involved in class and to have a different type of "voice."

Working on my 21 things...

Ok, today I am committed to finish one more of my 21 Things for Metronet. I'm hoping to stumble across some more neat web 2.0 tools that I can share with you. Wish me luck! :)

Google docs

I'm really excited to use Google docs on an upcoming student project. I love that students can collaborate and create a group project or presentation, without one or two students doing the bulk of the work. With Google docs, I can easily keep track of which students are contributing to the group project and in what manner.

Research Project Calculator

I'm proud to say that I was able to talk about the Research Project Calculator with parents and colleagues this morning at a 504 meeting. The parents were concerned with their son's ability to stay on top of on-going research assignments. I was able to briefly explain the R.P.C. and also to point out that there is a link to this on my webpage at work.

MetroNet Day 2 Blog

Just set up my Google Reader...now trying to determine all the many fine uses of it!

SHAWN-I!!!

HI SHAWBN!

MetroNet Day One

Seems like lots of good information and a fun group. I'm looking forward to learning lots this year!