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.