Google Books and Magazines

Google Books and Magazines is a collection of books and magazines that are available to access for students and teachers. Some are complete works especially if they have a copyright date before 1923 and if the copyright is after 1923 it may be a complete copy or they may have a limited preview of the material. The limited preview could be upwards of 80% or more of the book or magazine.

There are curently 1 million books for download including what many people would consider the classics. Other books have a preview which means random papes are withheld from the preview. Although you can not see the entire book, you can get a feel for what is being presented and maybe be able to find valuable quotes for your research paper that you put off till the last minute and the library is closed.

If find an interesting book or magazine you can also embeded into your website or blog post at the page you found interesting.  Not all books and magazines can be embedded but you can link to some great resources that one can use in the classroom.




Some files that seem like they should embed just won't work properly but they do create a link to the google book or magazine page number so that you could post a link to an article you could have your students read and respond to for a class assignment as well.

30 Days of Google

I decided that there are so many Google tools that we as educators could use that I will do a blog post a day about 1 tool for an entire month. The goal is to:

• describe the tool
• explain and/or give examples of how it is being used in the classroom
• post a link as to where you can learn more information about a particular tool
• potential lesson plans and/or resource links to lesson plans
• list other websites that may be of use

This will be an annual event due to all that google provides not just for educators but to the world for free as long as you don't count those cute banner ads on the sides of your searches. I will be covering the main ones people know like google earth, bloger, etc, but I will also be covering some tools that not a lot of people take advantge of either like google books, voice, and other various tools that can be found here. My hope is that during the "30 days of Google" you will find something useful about the tools you are already using, and find a new tool or two that you are not using to add to your ever growing teaching toolkit. I will being this journey and wrap it up around the time spring breaks starts up here in Fairbanks, AK.

Quizlet - The Place to Study Vocabulary

Quizlet is easily one of my personal favorite websites for studying definitions. I only wish this was around when I was in high school and had to memorize well almost anything vocabualary wise. They have improved this site over the years with three features that I really like.

Students get instant feedback, they can track their progress and much more.  If you need students to learn vocabulary this is the site I wished I had 20 years ago to study vocabulary.

Pictures - You can now link pictures to your terms and definations for your students to study. This is especially useful when learning new words and for all of those visual learners out there.
Scatter - This is the second game that is availble to play to learn the vocabualry.
Social Network - You can now let your friends know what sets you are currently studying or creating through Facebook or MySpace.

If you have never been here before you can view and practice different sets without becoming a member, but you can not create your own. Once you are a member you can create your own set or share that task with a fellow teacher or student by inviting them into the process as well.

They have a detailed help menu to help you get started or learn advanced techniques to get the most out of Quizlet.

Below is a video explain the ins and outs of Quizlet.

Vernier Probeware

So we recently attended a district wide training session on Vernier Probeware with a local professor from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, UAF,  and had time to sit down and learn how we might use the probes within a math and science curriculum.  We also had a chance to see how students could use software for the iPads that might be useful as well.  There are close to 60 probes available for use in pre made labs or if you think of your own learning experience  you could easily create your own as well.  As for a Math teacher, you go to probes would be the motion detector and the temperature probes.  During this time I worked on a lab called Tic Toc found in the Real World Math book.  You can set up a Pendulum and have the students model and explore real life cosine functions and how to manipulate different aspects of a cosine function from amplitude, frequency, and the period.  I set up the Pendulum using an ice fishing rig, some string, and fishing takle bob.  But if you have real science equipment you could easily set it using equipment from the science department of your school as well.  We had a great turn out during this session and lots of interest using the equipment from teachers.  As I work with teachers district wide I will post about the learning opportunities that students have had and the engagement level of the labs as we proceed.

Excel Labs

So we as a district have started a district wide priority this year of doing one lesson for all 4th through 8th grade students using microsoft excel.  In grades 4th - 6th grade the content is delivered through the math classroom and the 7th and 8th grade lessons are delivered through the science classroom.  For the 7th and 8th grade lessons we looked at having the students learn about writing equations, learning to use the auto fill with equations, the stats formulas and framed it around the science concepts of "Why cells are small" for 7th grade students and is "Does solar power in Fairbanks, AK make economic sense?".  Students practice variable replacement, formula writing, drag fill for patterns, and answered questions based on the numbers and science behind each lesson.  I will post links to the lessons later on, but a sample of the 8th grade lesson can be found here.

Math Reasoning Inventory

Math Reasoning Inventory provides a wonderful opportunity for teachers to assess the reasoning behind how students come to a conclusion when working with whole numbers, fractions and decimals.  Teachers sit down with students and have students answer 10 questions on the given topic and explain to their teacher how they arrived at their answer.  You then record their answer and the reason behind the answer and can make any additional notes about the process of their rationale.  You can create a teacher account which allows you to do the Inventory for up to 160 students.  If you are at a small school site you can set up a manager account and link up to 5 teachers to easily compare results across the school or grade level.  If you were wanting to do this for an entire school or district then you may have to pay for that size of service but is free for single class use or a small number to teachers.  By doing this activity, you are probably looking at around 10 minutes per student per topic for a grand total of 30 minutes per student.  The benefits of looking at how students reasoning when working on math problems may give you insight in to how to best teach your students.  I would recommend this for middle school teachers or high school teachers that are working with students that struggle with math.

As stated on their website the goal of this site is to:

"MRI is an online formative assessment tool designed to make teachers’ classroom instruction more effective. The MRI questions focus on number and operations and are based on content from the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics prior to sixth grade. They are questions that we expect…and hope…all middle school students to answer successfully."

There are dozens of videos discussing the benefits and showing examples of student reasoning that are a great resource as well.

'via Blog this'

Douweosinga blog has this great tool that allows you embed how many states you have visited or how many countries world wide you have visited as well. I can see using this as geography project or as a math project where you use the numbers from all the students in a statistical analysis.




visited 19 states (38%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

The Downside to iPhones

How many people that have iPhones think about what would happen if they lose or have their phone stolen?  Do they have safegaurds in place to protect against the data that is stored on their phone?  I think this is one of the most overlooked aspects of smart phones is that we do not take precautions against in favor of quick and easy access.  If you are keeping personal information stored on your iphone, like being signed into web applications for easy posting, what could a person do if they had access to your iphone?  Is your work email set up on your iPhone without a password to access it?  Do you have apps installed that would help track your lost or stolen iPhone?  Most people I have a feeling would say no and have never thought about this ever happening, but the bigger question should be not if but when it will happen to you or someone you know.  Below are some links to some articles that everyone that has an iPhone should read in case you are unfortunate enough to lose or have your iPhone stolen espeically if you use it to access senstive information.

Here are some article to read incase it does not turn up - I would call the phone company as soon as possible.  How well they work, I do not know but know but if you have lost your iPhone or want to take precautions, this could help.

lost-iphone-lessons-learned

how-to-recover-from-a-lost-or-stolen-iphone

what_do_if_you_lost_your_iphone

lost-your-iphone-fear-not-video

what-happens-when-your-iphone-gets-stolen

6-ways-to-find-track-lost-stolen-iphone-free

six-things-i-learned-from-losing-my-iphone-3g

http://db.tidbits.com/article/10359

Why is technology important in schools?

Those that are in the field of education and more specificly educational technology were we work with teachers on integrating technology know that sometimes it is hard to quantify to a teacher about the usefulness of how technology can improve and enhance your classroom experience for thier students and themselves.  I have a co-worker who stated that basically "we need to enlighten teachers that technology should be the new way to do things instead of just one more thing".  If technology is just "neat" or is "one more thing" then what added value does this bring to the classroom for a teacher who is already short on time?  This is where having a wide array of choices but knowing exactly what might enhance a classroom is essential.  I will be doing a day long session on 20 sites that teachers should know and a large portion of that is developing a PLN (Personal Learning Network).  I could ramble on but one of the better post I have read on the value of a PLN can be found here in an article called "The Value of Educational Technology"  written by Dave Andrade. 

Teaching A People's History is a wonderful site that a History or English teacher could use to enhance their lesson plans on a given topic.  Teaching A People's History has detailed lesson plans in PDF format for a wide range of topics and time periods that will push students of all abilities to critically analyze a given topic deeper and in meaningful ways that are not always apparent.  One unit I looked at was on the Potato Famine that decimated Ireland.  After presenting the facts and extended reading, it asked students to start to think about what were some of the problems that led to such a preventable disaster.  At the end of the unit it laid blame not just on the English landlords but the farmers as well as the church.  If you would like to learn more about the Howard Zinn Project of Teaching A People's History, please read the Frequently Asked Questions.