Posted in Links, Salem City Schools, Tech Tools, Web 2.0

Explore Planet Earth

Posted on by Tina Coffey

Have you heard about Discovery Channel’s new 11 part mini-series event called Planet Earth? It airs on Sundays at 8PM e/p.  You can check out information on the show here.  Those of you who know me well know that I rarely watch television. I don’t have anything against it, but I just can’t sit still long enough to actually watch a show (unless I’m doing something else at the same time). Now, interact with video? I love to do that…and Planet Earth’s web page allows just that. And the added bonus? They even provide a tour of some of the places on the show with their Video Tour of Planet Earth using Google Earth. Watch video, explore scenes, view pictures….it’s awesome. I could see kids really getting into these features too, especially if you are doing a project or report on animals or habitats.

(Big thanks to Steve Dembo at Discovery Education for tipping me off to this awesome resource. )

Posted in Salem City Schools, Tech Tools

Resources from TTI

Posted on by Tina Coffey

Pam Palmer and I had the chance to attend the Teacher Training Institute (Put on by the Blue Ridge PBS and Blue Ridge East Technology Consortium) in March. One of the requirements for attendance is that we share what we learned. We’ll be glad to talk to you one-on-one (and have already shared some info individually), but thought it might be nice if we posted some of the info for future references. Pam helped me write this post…

Digital Storytelling:

One of my favorite sessions was done by Meg Collins, an ITRT from Roanoke County. I probably should write an entry JUST on digital storytelling…it’s such a great way to get kids thinking and writing and using 21st Century Learning Skills. Here are some quick links to give you an idea of what it’s all about:

Advanced Smart Board:

Check out all the great Smart Board Resources on Elizabeth Cox’s Smart Board Portaportal!

United Streaming:

Did you know that the teacher section of United Streaming has a bunch of really cool resources? You can build quizzes, writing prompts, and assignments, search by themes, find lesson plans and more. It’s a great resource!

Lessons:

We had the chance to sit in on some demo lessons by Master Teachers…you can find a bunch of ready-to-go lessons on the NTTI site.

Miscellaneous Notes:

  • Copyright–Tom Landon, from Blue Ridge PBS, has a portaportal with great resources about copyright. You can read detailed information about copyright here.
  • Internet Safety–Joe Showker, an ITRT in Rockingham County, has a portaportal with Internet Safety Resources.
Posted in Art, Fun, Links, Salem City Schools, Web 2.0

Photo Fun

Posted on by Tina Coffey

I couldn’t resist! I remember the good old days of egg dye and colored fingers! This is much neater–no water, no dye, no glue, not even an egg…just a picture of the Forsythia bush in my yard!

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If you like this chick, check out Dumpr. It allows you to do other neat things with your pictures, like create jigsaw puzzles, turn your pictures old, and create amazing circles.

Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Salem City Schools, Web 2.0

Why blog? (An incredible classroom blog example)

Posted on by Tina Coffey

I’ve been watching Kathy Cassidy’s Classroom blog a lot lately. I am so impressed! She is a grade one and two teacher in Canada…and she has used her classroom blog to really open the world for her students. I ran across this interview with her on You Tube…and just had to share.

In her video, Kathy talks about blogmeister, a blogging site created for teachers by David Warlick. You can create a site for your class there or with another blogging engine (like 21 classes or edublogs). Start small, as Kathy said, and then as you feel comfortable, you can add more features later.

Posted in Links, Salem City Schools, Tech Tools, Web 2.0

Delicious!

Posted on by Tina Coffey

Okay…I know I’ve cheated. I got your attention by trying to use food, but in my defense that is the name of the site I want to tell you about–del.icio.us!! I love this site (not quite as much as food…but it’s up there). It’s an on-line “social bookmarking” service.  In other words, it’s a place to save your favorite links on the Internet, instead of in your browser. You can access your favorites from any computer that has an Internet connection, and you can share your links with others. When you bookmark a site, you assign “tags” or categories to it. These tags help you find the sites you’ve bookmarked again later on, and makes searching for them very easy. This site is probably one of the tools I use the most often on the Internet. I hope you will try it out!

  • You can sign up for your own account here.
  • If you want to check out my links, click here.
  • To make bookmarking really easy, you can download special buttons to help you out here.