Priceless Resource

Today I found a great literacy resource for teachers. Literacy is Priceless blog post contains links to several sites that have activities for K-2 readers. One site www.Free-Reading.net has activities related to favorite trade books. Literacy is Priceless

Little Researchers

Through my delicious account, I found a recommendation for a kid friendly research search engine. This would be a good choice for our animal research papers that are coming up. KidRex for reseach.

Keep it safe!

Mr. Crosby's class created assignments related to internet safety. Areli's group wrote a vignette to express the need for internet safety. I think this is a great resource to share with my students to show them why it is important not to share to personal information on the internet. Skyeping with Mr. Crosby's Class

Just Peachey

Nik Peachey's blog offers a variety of suggestions on how to enable students to use technology in the classroom. There are several tutorials that help teacher learn ways to incorporate technology into everyday classrom use. Check out some of the previous topics to learn more.

Online Student Read Alouds

Through Ferlazzo's best of sites, there are lists of good holiday related websites. With Lincoln's upcoming 200th birthday, I thought it would be important for my students to learn more about this important President. I visited the Scholastic page link where there was read aloud for students. This audio-text makes the information accessible to beginning readers and advanced readers. This resource is a good tool to use during literacy centers. Click here to teacher resources for your class.

Science on Site

Through Larry Ferlazzo's best of Science and Math sites for ELL's, I found a great way for students to review and learn concepts. There are interactive games that give facts about scienct topics. Students can then play to reinforce learned information. Click to check out this science site.

Let's Get Reading

Larry Ferlazzo's website had a list of good sights for ELL students. I visited Sight words with Sampson, an interactive website that is a good resource for ELL students as well as beginning readers. This website allows students to see and hear sight words spelled and used in sentences. Then the students are directed to a game that is a review of the lesson that they have just learned. The audio text is very helpful for students as they learn to read and write. The graphics make it an enjoyable site for students to visit. Click here to visit Sight Words with Sampson.

Wiki about Wikis-Gettting the Wow

In checking out weblogged links, I realized that there are many ways a wiki can be used. I looked at the sample education wikis. It seems like a great way to keep parents and students up-to-date and involved. I particularly liked the wiki that Mrs. Huff's class has created. On the wiki the students were asked to write a summary of a book they were reading. By creating the wiki, the students were able to modify what their classmates had written. This sounds like a great way to get even the most resistant student involved. It also encourages them to do the reading so that they can contribute to the wiki. If I were working with older students, I think this would be a great way to get the students writing. I am still thinking of a good way to incorporate all this new technology I am learning into my second grade class. What type of technology could I use to wow my students?

Who knows 2.0?

Technology has come a long way since the 1990's. No longer are we able to simply read text on the internet, now we are able to read and write. This ability to read and write allows us to communicate with others around the world. WOW! Technology allows amazing opportunities. Now thanks to Web 2.0, web users are able to interact with each other immediately. With this technology My Space and Ebay are possible. In 2009, it is hard to imagine life without these and other interactive websites.

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To Blog or Not

Thinking of having your students create their own blog? At a loss of where to begin? Not sure if your students are ready? Here is one teacher's process of blogging with students.


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Need a good reason to log on?

Why should we encourage our students to create blogs? Blogs are an interactive way for students to be engaged in reading and writing. Blogs allow students to work cooperatively with each other. Click here for other good reasons to incorporate blogs into your classroom.

Shift Happens

I was amazed at how fast technology is growing in the world. I wonder how we as teachers will be able to give our students what they need for the future when we are racing through the content.

Check out this video!

Getting Motivated

My second graders are interested in many things. They enjoy reading and discussing what they have read. When it comes to writing however they do not show the same enthusiasm put their ideas down on paper. As a teacher, I need to closely follow the County's Language Arts Framework. I realized in viewing the YouTube clip Pay Attention, that I really need to access their learning in a different way. Lessons should include a variety of forms including technology, which they are familiar with in their home life. I can incorporate more technology into our lessons in several ways. Showing video clips during science and social studies that relate to what we are studying may help students better understand concepts since it is presented in a digital way. Having students research topics on the computer that interest them is another way that I can incorporate technology in our school day. Additionally students can use computers not only to play games but they can actually publish their own ideas. Maybe through the use of technology the students will be more motivated to read and write if the topics are related to their interests.

Availability of Technology

At my school each classroom has several computers for teacher and student use. In my second grade class we have 4 PCs and I have school laptop as well. Additionally we have a computer lab that the students are able to visit about two times a month depending on the schedule. Sadly a schedule has not been set up yet this year. I could talk to the media specialist about setting up a time that I could take the class into the lab teach a lesson (in doing so I would need to make sure the lesson is directly related to the frameworks).