From the blog of Melanie Holtzman, “Once Upon a Teacher” -

“If you haven’t faced it yet, it’s time to take a good look at the students you’re teaching. Students sitting in classrooms today are members of the Eye Generation. These students are multi-taskers of their digital, visual tools such as cell phones, ipods, computers and television. They transition from tool to tool without interruption of thought passively taking in their environment’s visuals. These students need to be taught to critically examine the images they are encountering on a daily basis in order to come to important conclusions.”

Melanie’s friends at Stenhouse Publishers have invited the readers of Once Upon a Teacher to participate in a conversation with author, Johanna Riddle about her new book “Engaging the Eye Generation“. What an opportunity! Being able to ask Johanna something about her book or just about teaching visual literacy strategies. And she will answer! Let’s take advantage of it.

The conversation with Johanna will be posted on March 13th, so now is the time to visit Melanie’s blog and send her your questions, wonderings or reflections. Please use the comment section of Melanie’s post to let her know what you think. Melanie encourages, “Let’s dig in and really think about how we’re addressing the needs of our 21st Century Learners. Free learning, instant access to material and questions answered…what are you waiting for?!?”

You can get free access to Johanna’s book online here.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cataniamichele/2855661699

Muskegon ISD has subscribed to the year-long tech webinar series offered by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All webinars are at 4:00 p.m. at Muskegon ISD and are free to all educators. You must register however on the ISD web site. Go to http://www.muskegonisd.org/development.The four offerings for March are:

Wednesday, March 4

Technology For Not Yet Readers with Gail Lovely

As technologies advance, there are new tools and resources for non-readers. Animation, video, sound, and graphics combined with good teaching creates powerful learning opportunities. Join Gail Lovely for this webinar and see some great tools and resources for young non- and almost-readers. Gail will share more than just a series of links, she will emphasize teaching strategies and classroom management of technologies as well as some really cool technological tools! Appropriate for Mac or Windows users.

Tuesday, March 10

Using Technology to Make Every Classroom an Art Classroom with Mark Gura

Visual Art is a highly valuable and much beloved part of traditional public school programs.  Nevertheless, it has always had to struggle to gain a place of prominence among subject areas competing for time and funds. The lack of access to a trained Visual Art teacher, lack of studio space, and the need for expensive and messy materials have made it impossible for many schools to offer the quality Visual Arts instruction they would like to, a situation that a great many teachers, students, and parents would like to see reversed.

Fortunately, the use of technology can change this situation for those who understand how. The increasing ubiquity of simple technology resources like: computers, Internet, and in-place or easy to use free or low cost software offers an opportunity to make the inclusion of Visual Art easier than ever. This webinar will discuss how technology makes Visual Art something that virtually all teachers can include in instructional activities and to greater effect than ever before. Discussed will be equipment, resources, and classroom management logistics–basic techniques–and activities and approaches of obvious value in our current instructional climate.

Wednesday, March 18

Project-Based Learning with Sara Armstrong

Project-based learning strategies engage students, meet standards, and address 21st Century skills. During this session, we will examine examples in which project-based learning has been successfully implemented, learn about resources, share planning documents, and commit to implementation action steps!

The last webinar is on March 24. The topic is International Schools. ISTE hasn’t provided a description yet for this session but we’ll post it here as soon as it becomes available.

A simple definition might be: Thinkfinity is a web site that provides FREE educational resources for everyone. As you explore the site however, you discover that it is much more than that.

The Verizon Foundation has partnered with 9 premier education organizations that produce discipline-specific, standards-based web sites that include lessons for teachers, activities to use in and out of the classroom, games for young children and teens, adult literacy resources and reference materials for anyone in the education field, as well as for parents and after-school practitioners. The Content Partners and their Thinkfinity web sites are:

• ARTSEDGE – John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
• EconEdLink – National Council on Economic Education
• EDSITEment – National Endowment for the Humanities
• Illuminations – The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics
• Literacy Network – American Library Association, National Center for Family Literacy, and ProLiteracy Worldwide
• ReadWriteThink – Internation Reading Association, The National Council or Teachers of English
• Science NetLinks – American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Smithsonian’s History Explorer – Smithsonian National Museum of American History
• Xpeditions – National Geographic Society

All of the content meets rigorous criteria including expert review and standards correlations by state agreements. The activities classroom ready for teachers and engaging for students.

The interface on the Thinkfinity home page makes it easy to search for the resources by key word, state standard, grade level, content partner, or resource type.

 Muskegon ISD has subscribed to the year-long tech webinar series offered by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All webinars are at 4:00 p.m. at Muskegon ISD and are free to all educators. You must register however on the ISD web site. Go to http://www.muskegonisd.org/development.

The two offerings for January are:

Google Lit Trips – January 14

           with Jerome Burg

How can teachers of literature bring the wisdom of the literature of the ages to the students of the 21^st Century? One way is to bring it to the world they live in and care about! The GoogleLitTrips.com project brings the greatest journey literature of all time to the world that today’s 21^st century students live in by tracking the journeys on the surface of Google Earth.

Google Earth allows the addition of place markers to indicate locations along the route and to include such enhancements as appropriate images, relevant website links, and thought provoking discussion starters.

Imagine putting your students right in the middle of the story, traveling right along with the Joads, from The Grapes of Wrath, Amir from The Kite Runner, or even Mr. and Mrs. Mallard from Make Way for Ducklings!

Jerome Burg, the developer of the GoogleLitTrip.com project will share tips, tricks, integration strategies and pedagogical considerations for ensuring that this technology implementation directly addresses good learning theory.

Differentiated Instruction + Tech = Powerful Learning – January 28

Stephanie Throne and Grace Smith

Harness the “power of two”: differentiating instruction plus technology equals a better learning environment for our very diverse students.  Join authors, educators, and tech enthusiasts Grace Smith, Ph.D. and Stephanie Throne, Ph.D. for a thought-provoking discussion about how you can use technology as a tool to differentiate instruction. They will offer a variety of practical strategies and user-friendly resources to accommodate a broad range of learning styles, abilities, and curriculum content to help kick-start your use of technology in differentiating instruction. This session is designed for K-8 teachers, district level technology coordinators, curriculum specialists and pre-service teachers.

For those at the secondary level teaching world languages and cultures, the REALIA (Rich Electronic Archive for Language Instruction Anywhere) Project offers resources to add to your toolbox. The focus of this project is realia: Materials which convey the everyday life of different cultures. Their mission includes this goal:

The goal of the REALIA Project is to develop and implement a searchable digitized media database which will provide instructors of modern languages with teaching resources accessible via the Web. REALIA will publish royalty-free, faculty-reviewed media for scholars and students, and be open to all disciplines that wish to contribute or use cultural materials appropriate for instruction at the college and secondary level.

Images are available for education use, copies may be saved on local computers for educational and research use provided due recognition is given to the REALIA Project.

In line with their mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, Google has partnered with LIFE to offer an online photo gallery as part of its image search function. Starting with about 2 million images, Google plans to add to the gallery to eventually include all 10 million images from the LIFE magazine photo library. The majority of the images (according to LIFE – 95%) taken from the 1750s to today have never been published or seen by the public. The collection can be searched using key words and browsed by decade or category to see works such as the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; The Mansell Collection from London; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880s; and the entire works left to the collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen.

Teachers are able to use in these images in face-to-face classroom instruction and student projects as long as they don’t republish that material online (or sell it, or anything else that falls outside of the boundaries of fair use). In their blog, Google states that users are able to print the images for personal use although there is a LIFE watermark on each image. There is also a link for each image for ordering prints.

Users can find the LIFE images within the Google image window or click here to go to the Google/LIFE web site.

OK, I have a confession to make…math has never been my favorite subject. Just one of those things I have always struggled with. However, with cool resources online, it makes it so much easier. Be sure to check out Create A Graph (http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/graphing/). This online tool guides you through five simple steps on creating a graph. First, you can select how you want the graph to appear (such as bars, lines, pie, area or xy). Next, enter the data, and finally, assign the labels. The fourth step is a preview, and the final step is an opportunity to print and/or download. Each step includes a help menu that explains the various options available in each step. There is also an icon that uses dice to teach probability.  

Ben Rimes, a colleague of mine on the MACUL Board, recently wrote about this tool on his blog, The Tech Savvy Educator. Thanks Ben!

If you’re looking for a way to teach searching the web to students, this might be the answer. Although the primary audience is elementary/middle school students, it could be used by anyone. According to the site,

Boolify makes it easier to for students to understand their web search by illustrating the logic of their search, and by showing them how each change to their search instantly changes their results.

Once you begin the process by selecting a puzzle piece, the software prompts you to enter a term. After that, you build the search by adding terms or using and, or, not. The user immediately sees the results of their search “string” below so they can see what happens as they add terms or use “not” to restrict.

Search results are presented through Google’s “Safe Search STRICT” technology. There are two important caveats: a) no filtering technology is 100% secure, as this blog posting astutely points out and 2) we are unable to control or modify the results that we provide, beyond the filtering settings available through Google.

While many adults have grown tired of the political advertising and campaign news in general, the concept of a presidential election is a new happening for many elementary children. Scholastic, a widely-respected provider of online educational resources, has developed a web site that teaches elementary children basic principles of a presidential election. On its Election 2008 site, Scholastic provides opportunities for students to vote for a candidate, meet the candidates, and hear the latest campaign news. Six large buttons on the main page invite students to learn about the electoral college, the process of campaigning, the candidates and their views on issues, the political parties (including third parties), tips from the pros, and the government works. Finally, there are numerous games and quizzes for the adventurous.

Looking for some maps, word scrambles, clipart, forms, themes, and other classroom resources? Go to www.abcteach.com to laern more about this great site that provides teachers with materials for all subjects. There are two major sections – worksheets and abctools. The worksheets are primarily geared for student use, whereas the abctools are provided to help teachers create meaningful classroom activities. The abctools provide customizable crossword puzzles, word scrambles, math worksheets and more.