Melanie Fessler

Although educators tend to feel like they are left all on their own to deal with students that are getting crazier by the day, there are plenty of technology resources that can make their teaching job more effective.

Cyndi Danner-Kuhn's insight:
This is a great list with lots of ideas. Check it out at http://goo.gl/Hs0QEd

While it is possible, I suppose, to teach social studies and history without primary sources, it’s probably not a good idea. And while there are more and more places to find primary sources, it can still be difficult to track down stuff that you can use.

It’s can be especially difficult finding newspapers.

Enter Google News.

Google News is already an awesome tool for finding resources for current events around the world. But if you know where to look, Google News is also great for finding old newspapers for use in your instruction.

Steps?

Go to news.google.com.

Enter your search term in the search box. (I was looking for contemporary accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg.)

On the right side of the search box, you’ll see a small black triangle. Clicking the triangle brings up the Advanced Search.

Scroll down through the different advanced search terms to “Date added” and click the drop down menu.  Select “Specified Dates.”  Then enter the dates you’re interested in – I selected May 1, 1863 to December 31, 1863.

After hitting search, you’ll get a list of Google results.

After selecting one of the links, you get a PDF version of the newspaper. You can then browse the article by dragging around with your mouse or track pad. You can also move around in your article / newspaper by using the navigation pane on the right-hand side of your screen.

C4 Integration?

Using Google News to gather and organize information is a perfect example of the Collect theme in the C4 Framework.

Sweet!

Filed under: C4, common core, current events, google, news, primary sources

When was the last time you took your kids on an actual field trip? You know. Got on a bus and went to some cool historical site or museum?

It doesn’t happen very often anymore. It costs too much. Takes time. Maybe there’s just not a lot of great places to go visit that are close enough.

So you no have no money, no time, and no cool places very close. The answer? The internet, of course.

Google Hangout has put together a very cool tool called Connected Classrooms. Connected Classrooms is a new program on Google+ that makes it easier for teachers to connect their students with virtual learning opportunities on Google+. Virtual Field Trips use Hangouts On Air to connect classrooms with unique learning experiences provided by a variety of educational partners on Google+.

• 15 Awesome Interactive Virtual Field Trips
• Electronic Field Trips from the National Park Foundation
• Virtual Field Trips from Bernie Poole
• Virtual Tools and Field Trips from The Teacher’s Guide
• SimpleK12 has a ton of Virtual Field Trips in multiple content areas
• Nice collection of Field Trips from Internet4Classrooms
• Vicky Blackwell’s collection of Field Trips 
• Virtual Tours: Travel Around the World from TechTrekkers
• Virtual and Digital Tours from Teacher Tap

Filed under: field trips, google, library, museum

Welcome to a post that examines an amazing OER (Open Educational Resource) covering Geometry through PBL (Project Based Learning).  First, to ensure you do not miss one of these valuable posts or other resources covering PBL, Digital Curriculum, Web 2.0, STEM, 21st century learning, and technology integration, please sign up for 21centuryedtech by email or RSS.  As always,  I invite you to follow me on twitter (@mjgormans). Please give this post a retweet and pass it on. Have a great week – Michael Gorman (21centuryedtech)

Booking Info – Are you looking for a practical and affordable professional development workshop for your school or conference?  I have traveled the country delivering PD relating to technology integration, PBL, STEM, Digital Literacy, and the 4 C’s. I have done 100′s of workshops and presentations.  Check out my Booking Page… Please contact me soon if you have an interest. My winter, spring, and summer for 2014 PD dates  are already beginning to fill fast! 

If you have been a reader of this Blog, you are aware of OER (Open Education Resources). These are free high quality educational resources that can be a companion, or possibly a replacement, of the long running fee based text book. It could be just what you need as you move your classroom into the 21st century.  I am so excited to share this quality and engaging math resource with you in this post! While I am sure you will find the price (free)  perfect, I am even more certain you will find the quality of Curriki Geometry  even better. Be sure to visit, and while you are there… sign up for a free account. Let’s take a look! Keep in mind the next post covers another OER resource allowing Algebra to become interactive!

Curriki Geometry – Imagine a course of study in Math based on Project Based Learning and Geometry. Before visualizing this concept, entertain the idea that this product has no financial constraints.  Yes… that means free! The people at Curriki believe that students learn math best by doing it and using it in their lives. This brand new Geometry curriculum can help you and your students in three ways. First, by building the skills and confidence that will help them conquer any mathematical problem. Second, by developing essential 21st century skills such as communication, collaboration, and teamwork. And last,  students will  love coming to geometry class! Take a look at these engaging Geometry PBL units as described by Curriki!

• Selling Geometry –  This project introduces students to a brief history of geometry, geometric terms, geometric shapes, and transformation and manipulation of shapes through reflections, tessellations, and dilations. Students will form marketing teams to “sell” geometry by explaining key terms, demonstrating key shapes, and describing the significance of geometry to an audience.
• Designing a Winner Project – This project allows students to apply the geometric principles of triangles, volume, and coordinates to the mapping and design of a multi-purpose arena in a limited area. The arena must serve as a venue that can be easily converted for use by two sports, plus serve as a concert venue if needed. Students will form design teams to create a map showing how the arena can be converted for the two sports. The map will be accompanied by a hand-built model or a digital design using Google SketchUp or other tool. In the final presentations, the map and design ideas will be presented to the local City Council.
• What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras?Project - One real-world task students must learn is the ability to explain what you know to others. The challenge in this project is for older students to find common examples of right-angle geometry and use their geometric knowledge to create a lesson that explains Pythagorean principles to younger students in a way that is engaging, understandable, meaningful, and relevant.
• TED Talk: House of the Future Project - The challenge in this project is for students to examine trends in housing, extrapolate that information to predict the future, and use their geometric modeling skills to design a house that supports their predictions. Students will create a floor plan and basic model of a house of the future that reflects four trends and then deliver their design and give evidence of their thinking in the form of a 10 minute presentation about why their house will be necessary and useful in the future. The format for the talk can vary, but it is suggested that the presentation follow the guidelines for a TED-like talk in which presenters give short presentations that focus on the future and innovation.
• The Art of Triangles Project - This project teaches students the basics of triangles, such as types, congruence, proofs, and similarity, by asking each student to create a poster, drawing, or personal adornment such as a fingernail design, piece of jewelry, or tattoo that uses at least two different triangular shapes. The product must meet the criteria for ‘beautiful’—that is, it must display symmetry or other design elements that make it attractive.
• How Random is My Life? Project – This project is designed to have students work through and master basic problems in probability, and then apply that knowledge to authentic issues in which statistics and probability play large roles. The topics should apply to teen interests and concerns. Students will be given the opportunity to research and choose their topic. However, topics may also be assigned by the teacher in one of four areas below. After researching the issue, students are expected to explain how probability affects their lives in each of these areas, and to make recommendations to other teens on actions that can improve their chances of making good decisions on each issue.
  •      1. Driving and cell phone use
  •      2. Diet and health
  •      3. Professional athletics
  •      4. Costs associated with a college education

As you can see Curriki is delivering a product that brings Geometry to life and provides those important real world connections which is a pillar of PBL. Perhaps your Driving Question should be; “How can I bring one unit of Curriki Geometry to my students”. As you come to an answer, I am sure you will keep inquiring your way back for more.  With just a little Curriki Geometry, your students will find themselves, not on the circumference, but in the very center of their Geometric circle of learning.

Note… In the next few weeks you will discover an amazing OER Interactive Algebra Resource, explore a Grammar Machine, discover why Santa believes in PBL, and have the opportunity to read a very special letter to teachers direct from the North Pole. Sign up now and please give a retweet!

Thanks for joining me on this wonderful journey of 21st century resources.  Join me in future weeks as together we continue to explore several more posts devoted to the Flipped Classrooms, Project Based Learning, Assessing 21st century skills, technology integration, web resources, and digital literacy.  I enjoy learning from all of you. Also remember to subscribe to this blog by RSS or email and follow me on twitter at mjgormans. I also appreciate your sharing of this post and any retweets. Keep up the amazing work,  have a great week, and enjoy the resources! – Mike Gorman

Booking Info - Are you looking for a practical and affordable professional development workshop for your school or conference?  I have traveled the country delivering PD relating to technology integration, PBL, STEM, Digital Literacy, and the 4 C’s. I have done 100′s of workshops and presentations.  Check out my Booking Page… Those 2014 dates are going fast. 

As the end of 2013 approaches we'll start to see most news organizations start to publish videos that review the biggest stories of the year. Some of these videos will feature serious news while others will be of a lighter nature. Instead of waiting for year-in-review videos to appear on the web, challenge your students to create their own year-in-review videos. Students' year-in-review videos could be about local news, national or global news, entertainment, sports, or a combination of all of these areas.

Four free tools students can use to create year-in-review videos:
1. The simplest of the options on this list is to use the YouTube photo slideshow tool. The YouTube photo slideshow creation tools allow you to specify the length of time that each image is displayed for. After uploading your images you can use the annotations tool to add as much text as you like to each frame of your video. Directions for creating a YouTube photo slideshow are available here.

2. Pixorial is the online video creation tool bears the closest resemblance to iMovie. The thing that I like the most about Pixorial is that the video creation and editing tools are laid out in an intuitive user interface. Most users will never find themselves wondering what any of the editing tools do or what to click on next. To create a video in Pixorial you can upload pictures and raw video footage then organize that media into the sequence in which you want it to appear. You can insert transitions between elements by selecting them from the transitions gallery. If you would like to add a soundtrack to your production you can select one from the Pixorial gallery or upload your own audio files. Pixorial also makes it easy to add text to each picture or video that you upload. Just click on "overlay text" in the video editor when you're viewing the element that you want to add text to. Pixorial offers a free plan to educators. The educators' plan provides 30GB of free storage. Pixorial offers Android and iOS apps too.

3. WeVideo is a online video creation tool that has been featured many times on Free Technology for Teachers. In the WeVideo editor you can upload your own media clips or use stock media clips to produce your video. The video editor provides tools for trimming the length of display and or sound of each element you add to your video project. What makes WeVideo collaborative is that you can invite other people to create and edit with you. The WeVideo Google Drive app allows you to save all of your video projects in your Google Drive account. WeVideo also offers an Android app that students can use to capture images and video footage to add to their projects.

4. Weavly is a video creation tool that provides a simple drag and drop interface that allows you to search for, trim and combine tracks without ever leaving the Weavly site. You can mix together video and audio from YouTube, Vine, and SoundCloud. You can also add animated GIFs from Loopcam, Tumblr, and Imgur. To start creating your Weavly video perform a search for video content. When you find a video clip that you like drag it to the Weavly editor where you can adjust the start and end times of the clip. Then move on to adding sounds by search for sounds and draggin them to the Weavly editor where you can again trim the start and end times. Finally, you can add some animated GIFs by searching for them and dragging them into the editor. You can repeat all of these steps as many times as you like to create your video.

One of the challenges of getting some students to read independently is finding books that engage them. The next time a student says to you, "there aren't any books I like," have them try one of these tools to find a book that they might like.

The Book Seer is a neat book recommendation engine that I discovered few years ago through Kristen Swanson's Teachers as Technology Trailblazers blog. The Book Seer is very easy to use. To get a book recommendation just type in the title and author of a book that you've recently read and the Book Seer will spit out a list of related titles and authors that you might enjoy. I tested the Book Seer with four different titles. The more obscure titles that I searched for, Snow in the Kingdom, and A Good Life Wasted didn't yield any recommendations. When I searched for The World Is Open and Hatchet plenty of recommendations appeared.

Your Next Read is a neat little site that provides you with a web of book recommendations based on the authors and books you already like. Here's how it works; type in the title of a book you like or author you like and Your Next Read will provide you with a web of books that might also enjoy. Click on any of the books appearing the web to create another new web. Below you'll see the web of recommendations that appeared when I typed in Gary Paulsen's book Hatchet.

Google Books can be a good research tool for students if they are aware of it and know how to use it. In the video below I provide a short overview of how to use Google Books for research. You can also find screenshots of the process here.

I had a lot of fun presenting a webinar today for Infinitec. Here is a link to the slideshow for review!

Click to view

A couple of years ago Microsoft launched an open source timeline tool called ChronoZoom. At that time ChronoZoom was an impressive interactive timeline of the history of the world. But that's all it was. Recently, I learned that ChronoZoom now allows students and teachers to create their own timelines. Timelines created in ChronoZoom can include multiple layers so that you can see how events and eras overlap. Within each section of your a time multiple videos, images, and texts can be displayed.

The "zoom" part of the name ChronoZoom comes from the way in which you navigate the timelines by zooming-in and zooming-out on elements of the timeline. In that sense ChronoZoom's display will remind some users of the Prezi interface.

Applications for Education
Project ChronoZoom offers three sample lesson units that teachers can download for free. The units include templates for creating content on ChronoZoom. A tool like ChronoZoom could be great for students to use to create comparisons of what was happening in multiple parts of the world during the same era.

Pearltrees is a service that combines social bookmarking with mind-mapping. Using Pearltrees you can bookmark websites and arrange your bookmarks into webs or mindmaps of related topics. Recently, Pearltrees added the option for users to upload files use in their mindmaps. Users can arrange and share their files just like they can with any other Pearltrees mindmap. Pearltrees can be used in your web browser or through the free Pearltrees iOS and Android apps.

Applications for Education
Uploading files to Pearltrees gives students another way to create digital portfolios to show-off their best work. Through Pearltress students can showcase work they've created offline along with work they've published online. For example, a student could combine links to their best blog posts with pictures of artwork that they have created offline.

On GettingSmart.com Today

Read more on GettingSmart.com

Nix The Tricks is simultaneously:

• a free eBook cataloging many of the rhymes, shortcuts, and mnemonics teachers use (I'm looking at you, FOIL) that rob students of a conceptual understanding of mathematics.
• a labor of love from editor Tina Cardone.
• a great example of the deep bench of talent we have in Math Twitter Blogosphere.

It was all sourced from math teachers online. It's all free to you.

Good place we have here.

A couple of years ago NOVA aired a program called How Does the Brain Work? The show explored what scientists currently know about the human brain and the research that will help us to know more about the human brain in the future. One of the online supplements to How Does the Brain Work? is this interactive collection of images of brain scans. The collection of images, titled Mapping the Brain, allows you to choose from six imaging methods and choose the part(s) of the brain that you want to see highlighted in the scans.


Applications for Education
PBS Learning Media offers a couple of resources that can be used in conjunction with How Does the Brain Work? and Mapping the Brain. Mapping the Brain (teachers page) offers some discussion and research questions for high school students to answer as they view the images. Brain Geography is a middle school lesson in which students create models of the brain.

This month MathDisk became an advertiser on Free Technology for Teachers. Even if they were not advertising here I'd still think that MathDisk is a neat service.

MathDisk is a service that teachers can use to develop interactive mathematics worksheets. Through MathDisk's "Math Builder" tool you can design mathematics models that your students can use online. The models and worksheets you develop online can also be downloaded to use offline if you also install the MiBook software on your desktop or on your Android device.

If you don't have time to create new materials, the MathDisk gallery has pages of models and worksheets that you can choose from. Everything in the gallery, like everything you create through MathDisk, can be downloaded and or embedded into your own website or blog.

The video below offers an overview of the MathDisk's features.


MathDisk offers an extensive playlist of tutorial videos for new users. That playlist is embedded below.

One of the traps that many student writers fall into is overusing favorite phrases and adjectives. I've edited and graded enough essays over the years to confirm this. There are a couple of tools that can help students avoid overusing the same phrases and adjectives.

WordCounter is a simple tool that writers can use to identify the words that they use most frequently in their text. To use WordCounter simply copy and paste text into Wordcounter then select how many words should appear in your "frequently used" list. To improve the utility of your "frequently used words" list you can tell Wordcounter to ignore small words (like it or the) and to use only root words.

StoryToolz offers a few tools to help you edit your work. The Cliché Buster analyzes your work to find clichés that you have used in your writing. The Readability tool analyzes your text to estimate a reading level on several scales.

Last spring at the Massachusetts School Library Association's conference Pam Berger presented the idea of using word clouds to help students analyze documents. Wordle is the "old reliable" of word cloud creation tools. Some other options for creating word clouds are Tagul, Tagxedo, and ABCya's Word Cloud Generator.

Applications for Education
Have your students run their text through one of these tools before they their papers to a classmate or teacher to read.

Click HERE to access today's livebinder for resources

Other sites to note:
https://www.facebook.com/adigitalkindergarten 'like' it!  I will have extra codes to share for free apps after today.

How to redeem codes:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1574

Download to computer to display ipad using sync cable
http://www.itools.cn/en_index.htm

Kinderchat homepage

Once logged in, you can go to three main places from the top....You, Create, and Explore.

Under the "You" tab, all of the unpublished and published Storybird's can be viewed, edited, or shared.
When you are ready to create, you go to the "Create" tab.  The first thing you will see is artwork from dozens of super talented artists.  You can search through the artwork and also through the different tags that organize the artwork.

I love just going down the page and browsing through the different artwork.  It is such fun artwork .....the kids get so excited to find something that they love too.
Today when we started, the kids and I brainstormed some ideas for what their Storybird could be about. We decided as a class to have it be a holiday fractured fairy tale.  With Thanksgiving a day away, this would be perfect.

I love some of the ideas they came up with.  The one above is going to be a holiday version of Jack and the Beanstalk, except Jack is a girl named Katie.
This group was very excited to find an illustration of the abominable snowman.  They were going to use this as holiday version of Goldilocks and Three Bears.....except the abominable snowman is Goldilocks.
And in this Storybird, Naida and Bailey are going to tell us the story of the Three Little Elves and the Big Bad Santa.  

We also watched a few of the videos included in the "Learn & Support" section included within Prezi.
I loved walking around to see how different every one of the Prezi's were.
               
A couple of days ago I also included Prezi in the My Teacher Librarian Gave To Me....20 Days Of Awesome Library and Technology Tools and Resources Smore.

For Day 5, I highlighted Prezi with the little Tellagami video below and short tips on how to use Prezi.
              

Healthline Body Maps features interactive 3D models for learning about human anatomy. Body Maps allows you to zoom-in on specific parts of the body or view the body as a whole. Whether you zoom-in on a specific portion of a model or view it as a whole, you can choose from eight layers to view. The layers start at the skin and end with the skeletal system. Body Maps has male and female models.

Applications for Education
If you are going to use Healthline Body Maps in your classroom, please beware that the models are very anatomically correct. Keep that in mind before sending your students to the site. In addition to the interactive models, Healthline Body Maps offers short videos that explain parts of what students see in the Body Maps.

FreeDigitalPhotos.net is a new-to-me place to find digital images to re-use for free. FreeDigitalPhotos.net allows you download and re-use low-resolution images without restriction. To download and re-use high-resolution images you need to publish a credit to the creator of the image. That's not a hard requirement to meet. To help you meet the requirement of crediting the photographer, FreeDigitalPhots.net offers a simple chart that outlines how to credit the creator of an image. The left side of the chart lists the ways the images can be used and how to credit the photographer for each use case.

Applications for Education
It is easy to simply right-click on images on the web and save them your computer. Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should be done or that it is even safe (are you sure that you're only downloading an image and not something else along with it?) and legal to do so. Unfortunately, I frequently meet teachers who allow their students to engage in this practice. Fortunately, there is an easy way to stop that practice. The solution is to use images found on sites like FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

For more free images that your students can use, see this list of sources of Public Domain images.

Over the weekend I shared my review and my first presentation created with the new Haiku Deck web app. I have received a handful of questions about the web app since then. In the video below I provide a demonstration of how to use the Haiku Deck web app and in so doing address the questions that I've received about it.


Click here if you cannot see the video.

eduCanon is a free service for creating, assigning, and tracking your students' progress on flipped lessons. eduCanon allows teachers to build flipped lessons using YouTube and Vimeo videos, create questions about the videos, then assign lessons to their students. Teachers can track the progress of their students within eduCanon.

To create lessons start by identifying a topic and objective then searching YouTube and Vimeo from within the eduCanon site. Once you've found a suitable video you can build multiple choice questions throughout the timeline of your chosen video. You can create as many lessons as you like and assign them to your students at any time.

The video below provides a short overview of eduCanon.


Applications for Education
Using eduCanon, like other services similar to it, could be a good way to build introductory and review lessons for students. The option to track your students' progress is nice for anticipating the questios your students might bring to class and for seeing what you might need to review in-person with your students.

This evening I received an email from a teacher that was looking for a survey / poll creation tool that her students can use without having to create an account. Here are two options that fit that bill.

Yarp allows you to create a simple one question survey or a simple event invitation. To create a Yarp survey select "survey" on the homepage, type a question, then select your answer format. All answer formats present only two options along the lines of "true or false" or "yes or no." Each Yarp survey is assigned its own unique URL for you to distribute to the people that you want to complete your survey. Yarp invitations use the same format styles as Yarp surveys.

Flisti is a free and easy-to-use polling tool. Registration is not required in order to create a poll with Flisti. In fact, registering doesn't seem to be an option at all. To create a poll using Flisti just enter your question, specify some answer choices, then click "create new poll." Your poll(s) can be embedded into your blog, website, or wiki.

Applications for Education
Both of these tools could be good for students to use to quickly collect data about their classmates' opinions on any number of topics from politics to pop-culture to taste in food. An economics lesson from the Buck Institute for Education that I used for a few years required students to develop cafeteria menus and order supplies for the cafeteria based on the ordering patterns of their classmates. In that situation a simple survey tool like Yarp or Flisti could help students develop and recognize ordering patterns.

SummarizeThis is a free tool that summarizes the main point(s) of long articles that you find on the web. To use SummarizeThis you just copy and paste text into the summary box and click "summarize." A summary of the text then appears above the original text that you copied.

Applications for Education
SummarizeThis could be helpful to students when they are working on long and in-depth research projects. By using SummarizeThis they can save time by getting a sense of what a long article is about before reading the whole thing in detail. SummarizeThis provides a better summary than simply searching for keywords in an article to decide if the article will help a students' research.

Thanks to Jen Deyenberg for sharing this on Twitter earlier this week. 

We have all been inspired by the San Francisco Bat Kid! To fully grasp what happened in that city in mid-November, watch these videos. It isn't every day that you see so many volunteers coming together to make a child's wish come true. In truth, creating that entire scenario for the San Francisco Bat Kid was a model PBL project.

read more

This post originally appeared on Superintendent Conti's Blog

The presentation below was shared with a group of Science educators from around the state today at Marshall Simonds Middle School in Burlington.  Thanks to Joyce Bowen from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's Office of Math, Science, Technology and Engineering for coming out and updating us with the latest information on the future of our state's Science standards.

The key slides in my mind are slides 3 and 19. Slide articulates the rationale for MA adapting and not adopting the Next Generation Science Standards while slide 19 outlines the timeline for the adaptation of the new standards.  The bottom line is that these new standards will not be in place until after the 2015-2016 school year (at the earliest).

In addition, a set of K-12 draft standards are expected to be shared publicly before the end of 2013. If you have questions or comments, they are welcomed at mathsciencetech@doe.mass.edu. Thanks again to Joyce for her time and fielding all of the questions thrown her way.