virginia – Page 2 – Teaching with Technology

iPad, iPod Touch, iTunes U, Reading, Roanoke County Schools, Science, social studies, Writing

Great Ready-to-Go K-5 iPad Units on iTunes U!

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Tina Coffey

Have you checked out the courses lately in iTunes University? The teachers at Boyne City Schools have been busy. They have created a wide variety of iTunes U Courses on subjects that are suitable for elementary schools. If you haven’t taken a look, make sure you do! These courses contain activities using video, audio, ibooks, and apps. They also include project based activities. You do need an iPad or iPod Touch to really use these courses. Here are a few of my favorite:

And I love their course for teachers and principals on Flipping Professional Development!

Take a look at the news article about students using these courses in class. But don’t worry, you don’t need your students to have their very own iPads (thought it would be SO nice if they did). These lessons would still work great with the carts we have.

Boyne City is in Michigan, so they are using Common Core Standards. That means that some of these units might work for other grade levels in Virginia than indicated.

If you are a teacher at one of my schools and would like to use any part of these courses with your students, let me know. I’ll make sure the course is loaded on the iPads at your school!

Ideas, Links, Math, Reading, Roanoke County Schools, Science, Video

Flocabulary (Hip Hop Videos for the Classroom)

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Tina Coffey

Have you heard of Flocabulary? It’s a website that does hip hop songs to help students remember certain facts. It started with SAT vocab, but has expanded to all levels and subjects. To have access to all the videos/songs you need to pay a fee, but a few are free…including the one for Egypt, which you can watch here.

Note the lyrics below the song (they are clickable) and the resources to go with it on the right hand side of the page. I will warn you…you will be singing the chorus to this in your head all day after you hear it, or at least I did! 🙂

There are other free videos too worth checking out on the site, including Confessions of a Planet (Space), On Trial! (Test Taking Vocabulary), Let Freedom Ring (Civil Rights), This Ain’t Working (American Revolution), Place Value, Scientific Method of Madness, and more! There is a vocabulary section broken down by grade level and tons of other great videos in the paid version. You can also download songs in iTunes (for $.99 each). Take a look (and listen). I think you will love these!

Projects, Reading, Roanoke County Schools, Writing

Poetry Voicethreads

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Tina Coffey

Mrs. Sander’s students created poetry Voicethreads with their orginal poems. Check them out!

https://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=4351420

https://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=4352685

https://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=4352689

iPad, Projects, Roanoke County Schools, Spotlight on Apps

App Spotlight: PicCollage

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Tina Coffey

I absolutely LOVE Pic-Collage because it can be used in any subject or grade level. Think virtual poster. It’s safe (you can turn off the ability to pull pictures from the web in settings), and it’s FREE. It’s pretty intuitive if you play around with it, but just in case, here’s a tutorial on how to use it: