technocalities

And here it is.

beach musings

My best thinking comes when I'm walking and my best walking comes when I'm by the ocean. These two weeks I am at the coast of Maine, working on curriculum, interpreting new state tech standards, and walking - and thinking - a lot.

I've been blogging to Techjaki for a little over two years now. My postings have mainly been annotations to websites that I thought teachers might find useful. Here and there, I've thrown in references to up-and-coming technologies. Posted some projects we've been doing. Mentioned curricular references. Everything has been safe and static. Sort of vanilla.

I haven't really given you much to think about - only stuff to look at and replicate. To let you think that this is what blogging is all about is probably a disservice to bloggers everywhere. Blogs are about opinion, conversation, and ideas.

With this in mind, I'm retiring Techjaki. Oh, it'll still be here if you need to reference it. But, as I walk, I'm thinking I'm going to christen a new blog, hopefully one with a different flavor. Not vanilla. Rocky Road, perhaps.

Stay tuned.

everyday math

Most of us attended the Everyday Math training this week. I've emailed you out online references from the consultant and a link to a wiki so that we can compile our work. The wiki is here: Everyday Math at Newfound. If you've forgotten the password, ask a colleague or email me.

Here are the online resources the consultant left for us:

Research Papers and Other Print Resources Supporting Everyday Math
Implementation Stories from the Field: Everyday Mathematics - Portage, WI
Implementation Stories
General and subscription information about the Everyday Math listserv
Spring 2006 TeacherLink, the online newsletter.

summer reading

Summertime - and the reading is easy! Some suggestions for you:

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Thomas Friedman. I read this last summer and I'm still thinking about it. This is one fascinating yet scary book. Friedman talks about how globalization and technological advances have leveled the playing field worldwide as far as opportunities for success. The implications for education are huge. As you read it, think about the youngest student you know and imagine what the world and job opportunities will be like for him in ten to fifteen years.

Everything Bad Is Good For You by Steven Johnson. I'm reading this now. It's about how, contraty to popular belief, pop culture is actually making us smarter. This guy throws a whole new light on video games, reality TV, and more. Wicked interesting. I have a whole new respect for all those little kids who talk incessantly about the games they play.

Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New World Wide Web edited by Terry Freedman. This is a compilation by thirteen forward-thinking educational leaders who write about aspects of Web 2.0 - the new world wide web. Lucky for you, this one's free - and online here.

Blogs, blogs, and more blogs. There are amazing people out there contributing innovative and insightful thoughts and ideas about education in this new technological learning environment. Here are a few of my favorites:

David Warlick's 2 Cents Worth

Will Richardson's Webblog-ed

Steve Dembo's Teach42.com
There are SO many more...if these three aren't enough for you, check on their blogs to see who these people read. The point - find out what's going on and imagine the possibilities for the education of your students.

Have a great summer.

more math

This first site is a little tricky to navigate around in and the "tasks" are in Word documents - but boy, do they have some great math activities here! Balanced Assessments is from The Concord Consortium (part of Harvard's Graduate School of Education) and features engaging math tasks that really promote higher level thinking. The tasks are leveled - Primary (K-2), Elementary (3-5) and so on. All you primary folk, check out "Shirts in a Mirror" for a great assessment on symmetry. Good stuff here - worth a trip to the laptops or the "new" computer (where you'll find Microsoft Office!) to print them off!

Okay, so this isn't really math - but it is about numbers! Timeline is an interactive tool that lets you (or your students!) enter a series of dates and events into a form. Click through the pages to add as many events as you want. When you're finished, you can print out a timeline, horizontally or vertically, to show the sequence of events. Hey! Your kids could do one by month to map out some of the highlights of the school year!

Finally, ancient math. A Brief Introduction to the Abacus. Interesting read.

new math?

They tell me there's a new math series on the horizon with two programs left in contention. If you'd like more information about either of them, here are their respective websites:

Investigations in Number, Data, and Space
Everyday Math

a little of this, a little of that

I love games - especially the timed ones where you have to think quickly! This is one of the best online games I've seen: Tony Fraction. Students must think quickly about fractional parts to build a pizza to customer specification. Try it! It's fun and challenging!

For historical information, this site is amazing! Hosted by the Library of Congress, the Learning Page Community Center has primary sources that will make history come alive for kids. The Early American section lured me into the site - but there are also sections for Exploration and Explorers, Native Americans, Labor in America, War & Peace and more. It's worth a look!

This site speaks for itself: 20 Sensational Science Sites. Dinosaurs and DNA, butterflies and botany, space and the sea - you get the idea.

I think I may have blogged this site before, but I thought this was a good resource to point out. From Reading Rockets comes this selection that deals with Reading 101 - Text Comprehension. There's a short video on a technique called Reciprocal Teaching as well as several links to other sites that deal with issues related to text comprehension.

Speaking of reading, Kate DiCamillo (The Tale of Despereaux, Because of Winn Dixie, etc.) has a new book out called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - a lovely story of the adventures of a china rabbit. It's such a good read... I can't stop thinking about it...

NH Olympians

I just found this site that tells about the NH athletes in the Winter Games. I've posted it separately so it wouldn't get lost in the last post! Be sure to read the inspiring story of Kris Freeman, the cross-country skiier from Andover - it's a good model of perseverance for our kids.

XX Winter Olympics

The XX Olympic Winter Games will be held in Torino, Italy from 10-26 February 2006. The mascots of these winter games are Neve, a snowball, Gliz, an ice cube, and Aster, a snowflake.

Let's start with the Official Site of the XX Olympics. There's lots to look at here. You can download the schedule for the games or sign up for the email newsletter with all the important Olympic news to be delivered right to your classroom. There's a neat photo library of athletes sorted by sport. My favorite - visit the Kids' Village to see the Olympics as drawn through the eyes of kids in Italy.

There is SO much at NBC Olympics.com that it's almost distracting! I'm not quite sure this site could be used by students, especially younger ones, but it's an amazing resource! Videos, schedules, photos, articles about the sports and athletes - lots and lots of information. Check it out.

From Time for Kids comes Getting Ready for the Winter Olympics, an article written last month. Also from TFK, these articles: Going for the Gold and Olympic Gold Rush. And here's the Winter Olympics site from Scholastic News.

The Winter Olympics from Fact Monster includes information about the sports, biographies of former athletes, quizzes, crosswords and trivia. Mrs. Plankey loves this site!

From the folks at Enchanted Learning The Olympic Games: Winter 2006 in Turin, Italy. As with other topics from this website, there's tons to read about and do here, like Olympic books, reading about Italy (and Greece!), an Olympics crossword puzzle, quiz, and a scavenger hunt. There are even medals to print out. Some of this material is available to members only (and I bet you know a member) but there are portions available to the everyone. It's worth a look!

Olympic Winter Sports was posted online for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City - but much of the information relates to the sport in general so it's still pertinent. Speaking of games past, the Olympic Games Primer tells all about the history of the Olympics. And here's an Olympics timeline from the games in Ancient Greece to the present.

Catch Winter Olympic Fever is an online collaborative Internet project spearheaded by a first grade class in Ohio. Research fifteen winter sports, then vote for your favorite. No one has signed up from New Hampshire - and there's still time to join!

Here's the site for the US Olympic Team with biographies, photo galleries, sports, and more.

Okay, I'm not sure why anyone would want this but I'll include this site because it's unique - clip art of teddy bears in Olympic sports uniforms!

Finally, here's my favorite Olympics site:Winter Olympics for Kids - by kids! From Fourth Graders at Pocantico Central School in upstate New York comes this great website. These enterprising students did all the writing and illustrating of the site and have built a really good resource for elementary kids. Be sure to have your kids read about the sports - and check out the Activities page with the links to JigZone, the online jigsaw puzzle site.

Now, if you're going to study the Olympics anyway, wouldn't an Olympics Podcast some time before February vacation be neat? Lots of opportunities for your kiddos to practice good oral and written communication skills. Any takers??

new page for a new year

Over vacation, I worked up a new page that will serve as a spot to display some of the tech projects we're doing in the Newfound elementary schools. Check out Newfound Elementary School's Technology. The most recent posting is the Abenaki podcast from Mr. C's fourth graders at BHVS.

do you hear what I hear?

This brief posting deals with audio files posted on Newfound websites. The first link is to the Riverday podcast, an audio file of media collected during and after Fourth Grade Riverday last fall. The purpose for posting this podcast is twofold: kids can listen to it throughout the year and be reminded of concepts introduced and parents and stakeholders can listen as well to get the flavor of the day and to help them understand the power of learning outside the classroom.

The second links come courtesy of BES's kindergarten class. Listen to their song, "Thankful," and a little poem for Christmas. Both sound files were recorded in the classroom at morning meeting. Both were posted on the classroom webpage so parents could listen and sing/recite with their children at home.

Is this a form of technology that you might be able to use? We'll be doing more podcasts and other recordings in the future. It's a great way to get the word out about the good work we do here at Newfound - and to do it in the voices of our students.

six traits

Conversations at grade level meetings this year indicate a growing interest in Six Traits Writing. Now our Reading Specialists are presenting us with information at our December early release session - thanks for your work, ladies! Here's a bit of what's online about Six Traits.

Six Traits of Writing from a public school in Minnesota. Includes definitions, example papers, and links for teachers, many from NWREL (the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory).

6-Traits Writing from Wiredinstructor has many of the same resources as other Six Traits sites, but it also including links to an online discussion group and graduate courses.

There are some dead links off this site - but what's there is informative. Six Trait Writing for Teachers, Parents, and Students

Using Picture Books to Teach Narrative and Six Trait Writing is a bibliography of picture books that can serve as models for several of the trais of writing. Also has a link at the bottom of the page to a webpage called Make Six Trait Writing Fun.

Here's a 6 Traits site for adult writers - with lots and lots of good examples you could use with kids.WritingFix and the 6 + 1 Traits This site is sort of hard to describe - there are interactive sections throughout (called Mini-Writer's Workshops) with instructions for the writer/student to help in the development of specific parts of the pieces. I really like Word games with Serendipity - and I bet kids would too! Hey, no wonder this site is so good! It's sponsored in part by The National Writing Project! Be sure to check this one out - it's really special!

But wait! There's more! Here's the same National Writing Project people as above - with a website just for kids! WritingFix for Kids says it's for kindergarten through third grades and has a lot of the same interactive features as their other site. "Come and choose a game to play/From our list of games today./If you have some paper near/We think you'll write while you are here." How cute is that!

Okay, so this site isn't about Six Traits - but it's about writing! Besides, you know how when you learn something new you want to share it with people? So go visit Poetic Sense: Sound & Imagery. The author talks about improving writing with specific types of words - words that sound good together, words that provoke an image. My favorite - zeugma, a "rare but beautiful type of comparison!"

Here's a bulletin board for folks using 6 Traits or those who have questions about it. By the looks of its postings, Teacher.net 6 Traits Chatboard seems to be pretty comprehensive. It also looks to be active - the last post was yesterday!

Here's a Six Traits Checklist for kids to use in judging their writing...borrowed from Cooper Elementary in California.

Another site from a school - Six Traits of Good Writing comes from elementary schools in Wyoming and is a good quick reference.

Of course, this is just a sampling of what's online. If you find any other good places, post them in the comment section so we can all use them!

christa mcauliffe conference

This week I attended the 2005 Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference. This yearly event is sponsored by NHSTE (New Hampshire Society for Technolgy Education). This conference is by no means for “tech people” - it’s for all educators.

Tuesday’s keynote speech was given by Marc Prensky, a leading authority on the educational merits of online interactive games. He has labeled our kids “digital natives” since they’ve grown up with technology. That makes us “digital immigrants” – people who have moved from the “Old World” into this new world our kids can navigate so well. Prensky talked about how many of the skills and strategies that kids learn in order to succeed in gaming are many of the same skills we want them to learn in school. He talked about engagement being more important than content learning because engagement is what leads to motivation and helps kids continue to learn. Prensky believes that most of the 21st century learning that our kids will need to know to be successful in the future is not happening in our schools as much as it’s happening after school – when kids are interacting with technology. He showed us clips from some of the games, where players build characters, interact with other players’ characters, and work individually and as cohorts to complete tasks. Lots of opportunities for problem-solving and decision-making. Amazing stuff.

Kathy Schrock presented on the value of using primary source materials with students. Primary sources are actual records (letters, photos, artifacts) that have survived from the past. She has an extensive list of primary source material (secondary, too) on her website here. I loved this quote she used from Thomas Jefferson in 1871: “A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.”

Annette Lamb was here today. She’s an entertaining speaker with a wealth of online information. Her presentation was about using testing results to support the transformation of learning environments. She listed a dozen reoccurring problems kids have across grades and subject areas:
- Identifying main ideas
- Identifying relationships and making connections
- Sequencing events
- Identifying details
- Distinguishing fact from opinion
- Identifying cause and effect
- Comparing and contrasting viewpoints
- Defending a position
- Identifying the problem and solution
- Making predictions
- Making inferences
- Drawing conclusions
And she talked about how using technology (webquests, virtual field trips, online tools) with kids can address all those areas and more and gave us an extensive list of online resources. You can find many of them on her website, Eduscapes.

By the way, she showed us a wonderful model of professional development, where teachers worked in the summer to build technology infused lessons, then established a tech camp for kids so they could try them out and tweak them before the school year began. They even had kids make suggestions for improvement and take photos or draw pictures to supplement the presentation of the lessons.

Finally, an amazing piece of technology that’s new to me. It’s called a “Playaway” and it’s a single audiobook loaded on an mp3 player. It comes with earbuds and runs on AA batteries. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Chronicles of Narnia are the only children’s literature on Playaways and, in total there are only about thirty other titles available. But, hey, it’s only been out for a few months! And just when I joined audible.com… Playaways are a huge technological innovation. Think about it – it’s the first time any electronic media has been sold complete with the player!

More to come. David Thornburg is speaking Thursday and I still have many notes to go through!

searching with kids

With many classes doing research online, I wanted to take this opportunity to pass along a few hints about helping kids find what they need on the World Wide Web.

The safest place for kids to begin is with search engines for kids: Yahooligans, AJ for Kids, Kids Click, etc. There’s a list of kid-friendly search engines and directories at Websites for References & Research. Feel free to add this site to your Favorites on your classroom computer for future use!

There are things kids can do to make their searches more specific. As they’re planning their search have them think carefully about keywords and search terms that are tied to the information they need. Enclose phrases in quotes (e.g.“American Crocodile”). And be sure they’ve spelled correctly – not all search engines will allow for errors.

Then there are times when kid-friendly search engines just won’t produce the information kids need. In that case, you have two courses of action:
• You can do the searching for your kids beforehand– find the websites appropriate for them to use and add those to favorites or drag the URLs to the student desktop. If you have many URLs and would like me to make you a webpage, email me and we can make those arrangements.
• Use an “adult” search engine – like Google, Alta Vista, Yahoo, etc. Most of these sites have “Safe Search” options, usually found under Advanced Search right on the search engine’s opening page. Please be sure that this option is checked to help filter out adult content or links.

For your own information, here's the Basics of Search page from the Google website. Also, here are a few more links that deal with searching:
• How to Search the Internet – a tutorial page with links to help you with search techniques.
• And from Mrs. Plankey, Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need, a great site that helps adults to decide what sort of an online reference they need to use to obtain specific information.

Finally, please know that I am available to help you and your students with online research. Just email me.

conference time

In a few days it will be November, the final days of first term - and time for conferences. Some of you will be hosting traditional parent conferences, others will be doing student-led ones, still others a combination of the two. Whichever your preference (and you know which mine is!), here are some resources that may inspire or at least assist you.

This article from Education World, Student-Led Conferences Hold Kids Accountable, addresses student led conferences at a middle school level. But there's also information in it that would pertain to any grade level.

Here's an article about student-led conferences from Scholastic titled Let Your Students Take the Lead. In five sections, this article describes SLCs at a K-7 school in Vancouver. The part about Stephen dressing up is so true - kids are so proud of themselves when they conference with their families.

Peppered throughout Caity's Conference are scenarios depicting SLCs in this Oregon school district. Good ideas for conferences are intermingled with comments from parents and teachers. Note the date of the article - 1996. Student-Led Conferences have been around for a long time!

This writer shares some tools and techniques that she's employed holding student-led conferences at a private school in Colorado. I love the graphic she uses to depict the child's goal - and I especiallylike the fact that she has the child set a character goal as well as academic ones. What a great idea! When Students Lead Conferences: A Home and School Partnership - written specifically for teachers new to the concept!

Now, several links about communicating effectively with parents. Communicating with Parents and Families reminds us of the communication and interpersonal skills that make for an effective parent conference and features words of wisdom from veteran teachers. 27 Tips for Parent Communication is just that: an annotated list of good practices to employ when collaborating or conferencing with parents. And from the Vermont NEA, 15 Ideas for Successful Parent-Teacher Conferences - a simple list of good practices.

Thankfully, it doesn't happen often, but it's happened to all of us - a problem with a parent. Getting Along with Grown-ups, taken from a new Jossey-Bass book, Teacher Talk, describes several typical parent issues and gives you some strategies for dealing with them. Here's hoping you won't need to use them.

Finally, an anecdote. When asked what the best thing was about participating in a student-led conference, one of my former second graders told me it was having her mom, her dad and her teacher all at the same table all talking about the same thing - her! I was astounded that that aspect never occurred to me. But think of it: there you all are - the most important adults in a kid's life and you're having a conversation about the child. What kid wouldn't just love that?

new learning

Today I attended a NHSTE workshop where David Warlick, an ed tech consultant and blogger/podcaster from North Carolina, spoke about new literacies and new mediums for engaging our students in authentic tasks involving online communication. He talked about student bloggers writing for real-world audiences and about kids studying areas that interest them, then becoming experts on topics and podcasting their information for a world-wide audience. He talked about "Web2.0," where our students (us, too!) will have opportunites to publish and add to the growing amount of digital information available to the world. I have David's book, Raw Materials for the Mind. If you want to borrow it, just ask. Here's a link to his website, The Landmark Project, where you can read more and find links to his blog, My 2¢ Worth, or his podcast, Connect Learning. Great stuff from a truly inspiring person.

T.H.E. Journal is a print magazine that deals with technology use in schools. 20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have is a great resource that not only lists skills that teachers should have but also points them to online tutorials for assistance in acquiring those skills if need be. Thanks to Dr. Cornish at PSU for this link.

Last, this article that I heard about today: it's about this phenomonon called The Flynn Effect. The Wired Magazine article outlines the findings of American philosophy professor James Flynn, who collected data to show how IQ scores have been on the rise since the late 40s. Flynn theorizes that all the problem-solving that goes along with learning and using new technologies may have something to do with this increase in IQ scores. Think about that next time you see one of your kids with a Game Boy.

worries & fears

Tonight I had a long, cathartic talk with a good friend. We talked about Hurricane Katrina, the ongoing media coverage, and the governmental response. Our talk took a natural turn to surging gas and oil prices and uncertainties about the upcoming winter. We reasoned that similar discussions must be taking place in homes all over the country. Tonight, my friend was dealing with stress by cooking. I'm dealing with mine by writing.

In times like this, I worry more about kids. Many of us remember how September 11th and last January's tsunami, so far from New Hampshire yet as close as our TV screens, impacted our kids here. Now we have another disaster and in our own country again, a natural one this time - no terrorists to blame. Hurricane is part of our kids' vocabularies - seeing the televised aftermath of one has got to be worrisome. Add to that adults' growing preoccupations with oil and gasoline prices and, if New Hampshire kids aren't worried now, chances are they could be very soon. To that end, I post the following resources that may aid us adults in aiding our kids.

From the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) comes this article, Helping Young Children After a Disaster. It talks about how witnessing troubling events, even indirectly, can affect children and reminds us that kids can be very perceptive to adult fears and anxieties. It also offers strategies to help adults support kids and help them feel safe.

This next article is by Joanne Cantor, a leading expert on how media, particularly TV and movies, can adversely affect kids. Tsunami Coverage and Young Children's Fears was obviously written earlier this year but the information is applicable to the current situation. You can see by her style of writing how passionate Dr. Cantor is about her work - I heard her speak last year in Anaheim and she was very convincing.

The NYU Child Study Center has just posted Talking to Kids About World Natural Disasters. The article reminds us that certain children may be more sensitive than others to anxiety, worry, and stress. It has good information that you might want to pass on to parents in your newsletters home.

One more - Helping Children Handle Disaster-Related Anxiety tells us that children have few life experiences to help them put disasters into perspective. This site looks at preschool and grade school children as well as adolescents, outlining behaviors that can occur and suggesting ways to help reassure each age group.

We all know that much of a child's fear comes from imagined scenarios. Even so, imagined fear is still fear to a child and a child who feels afraid, is afraid. Here's hoping everyone's fears subside - and soon.

happy new year

I wonder how many of us educators think about a "year" as being from September to June rather than January to December! And here we are, at the start of a new year. I hope your summers were both relaxing and glorious.

Here's a great place to begin your new year. The folks from Responsive Classroom have a huge amount of information for new teachers as well as for us veterans. And it's not just for primary teachers - read the guided discovery article about the fifth graders and their dictionaries! I especially like that they archive all their newsletters here at http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/newsletter/index.htm. For other great features, follow their links to their home page and to the Article Library.

Okay, I'm not crazy about the web design of this next site but I'm including the link here because the site is about Harry K. Wong and his beliefs. Wong is the co-author of The First Days of School and, although it's not all applicable for elementary teachers, there's some good reminders for us here as we start a new year. The Summary of Major Concepts Covered by Harry K. Wong can be found at http://www.glavac.com/harrywong.htm

I can't find the right URL for this next suggestion - I'll repost if I find it. In the meantime, to get this free mailing from The Master Teacher, you'll need to follow these directions: click on the link at http://www.masterteacher.com/freeresource/. Scroll down to the bottom right section of the page and look for "Weekly Tips." Sign up for emailed hints and strategies about teaching, inclusion, and discipline. Good stuff from a great group.

Lastly, words of inspiration for the new school year. One of my favorite pieces, The Art of Living at http://www.wuji.com/Classics/artofliving.htm carries a good message for all of us - educators or not.

Best wishes for a wonderful new year.

food for thought

Yes, here's another summer posting - the one I promised. If you're thinking I haven't taken a break this vacation, think again. I'm beginning this post at the picnic table on Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport, where I'm having a glorious time!

This post is pretty heavy duty...no links to practical sites you can use in the classroom, no activities for the kiddos. The links here deal mainly with student learning for a future world and how education is changing to accommodate that. Somewhere this summer, I read that our work is becoming less about teaching and more about learning. Read on.

Remember that link from July for the NECC webcasts? Here it is again (http://www.kidzonline.org/necc/agenda.html) with a suggestion that you take the time to watch The Natives Are Restless with Deneen Frazier. This woman is an actress and a teacher who presented a wonderfully entertaining and informative NECC session showing where kids are today with regard to technology. If you only watch one webcast, make it this one. Guaranteed, it will change the way you look at student use of technology.

In recent months more and more ed tech bloggers have appeared on the scene. Here's one of the first - a guy I've been reading since January. The blog is called Teach42 and it's written by Steve Dembo from Chicago, I believe. Steve's been an elementary teacher and a tech coordinator, and this year will be teaching kindergarten! He's up on all things technological and updates his blog regularly. There are lots of good links off this site. And he even does a podcast if you want to listen while you're setting up your room. Teach42 is at http://www.teach42.com/. Click regularly for a good read - or subscribe if you have a news aggregator.

This summer I've been reading Empowering Students with Technology by Alan November, an educational technologist and consultant who founded an outfit called November Learning. He's a global thinker with innovative, thought-provoking ideas about student learning in a technological age. Apple is hosting a webcast of one of this presentations, "Fearless Learners, Courageous Teachers" at http://ali.apple.com/presentation/novemberpreso.html. Alan talks the viewer through one of his recent presentations, complete with a slide show and links to sites online. Great food for thought at a time when our roles as teachers are changing so dramatically.

Finally, a plug for a book - sort of. Thomas Friedman, a journalist, author, and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, has written a new book called The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century. References to this book have come up this summer at several ed tech conferences and have appeared in quite a few blogs. Apparently there is a subtle message for us educators woven through Friedman's book about globalization in the 21st century. The copy I bought from an Amazon reseller is taking its sweet time getting here so I haven't actually read the book yet and thus can't endorse it. But I can point you toward the 2005 "Think Global" series featured on MPR, where Thomas Friedman himself speaks about the core thesis of his book. You can watch the speech using Windows Media Player or listen to it with Real Audio. It's at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/features/2005/05/collaboration/. Just listening to this speech has sure made me rethink how I teach.

I'd be interested to read your comments about any of these links. Enjoy the rest of your summer - and have a great start of school.

from the porch

Okay, so I wasn't going to do a summer posting, was going to take some time off from this blogging...but there are good things happening out there that I need to write about. So I started writing this on vacation in northern Maine! And look! Blogger now supports images - so here's where I was!

First off, check this out: it's the Bristol Elementary Podcast we did the last week of school. I worked with some 3rd & 4th graders (who, by the way, were really good sports, as were their teachers!) who read nonfiction articles about summer safety, then worked up a 1-2 minute "talk" about the content. I recorded this talk, combined all the recordings into one, had our announcer David (what a guy!) do intros to each segment, and let the kids involved choose the accompanying music. It's up on the BES site at http://www.newfound.k12.nh.us/bes/besp_cast06-20.mp3. It can also be downloaded through the iTunes Music Store but I'm still working out the details of how people can subscribe to it to automatically get the new podcasts we'll (ahem) be doing next year.

And what's a podcast, you say? It's the same as a broadcast, only it's online as an audio file. You can listen to a podcast on the web through your computer - or you can download it, much as you'd download music, and listen to it on your mp3 player, or save it to your hard drive for later listening, or play it over and over again on your computer...get the idea?? Now, think about podcasts in the same light as your weekly newsletters or your school webpage. Can you see that podcasting could be another way to practice effective communication skills? could be an exciting new way to give kids an authentic, global audience? another way to get information about the school out to the public? Give this some thought - it's my hope to be podcasting in each building next year. I've been toying with formats - so stay tuned.

Every year, ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, hosts a big educational technology conference called NECC (National Educational Computing Conference). This year's conference was in Philadelphia and has just recently concluded. NECC has posted webcasts of some of the sessions online at http://www.kidzonline.org/necc/agenda.html. To view them, you need Windows Media Player 7 or higher for Mac or Windows, a free download if you don't already have it on your computer. Registration's free - just name, organization, email, and country. So check out those webcasts to see what's up and coming with educational technology.

Finally, Teacherline, a service of PBS, offers professional development courses online. They have a TON of offerings in Reading/Language Arts, Math, Science, Technology and more! The price is affordable and there are even options for graduate credit. And yes, our computers can handle it! It looks like most of the fall classes run from the end of October until the beginning of December. The course catalog is available at http://teacherline.pbs.org/teacherline - take a look!

More later - in August, probably! There's just so much to share! Hope you're having a wonderful summer!

fun & games - for the end of the year!

It's summer - and vacation!! We've all worked hard this year - now's the time for a little online playing!

Google image search is a great way to locate pictures. You enter a search term, then Google searches the internet for pictures that match your criteria. Guess the Google is the process in reverse: the game gives you a set of pictures, then you must guess the Google search term that produced those photos. The site bills itself as being addictive - and it is! Click on http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/ to see!

This one's just plain freaky - a little like the toy I bought last Christmas. Think of an object (animal, vegetable, or mineral), then start to play 20 Questions - with the online program asking the questions. You won't believe how accurate it can be at guessing what you're thinking. Twenty Questions - try to stump it at http://www.20q.net/

Lots of games here - card games, board games, word games, games with online players and without. Yahoo! Games at http://games.yahoo.com/. Go play.

Even if you're not a chess player, check this one out. It's an online version of chess called Thinking Machine 4 but, as the computer plays against you, the program's artificial intelligence sketches out possible moves on the chessboard, contemplating the best one to make. How do they DO that? It's eerie - but fascinating! Chess at http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/.

Geocaching begins online but ends on the trail! Visit this site to learn about modern-day treasure hunts where you follow online directions to get to a cache that someone has hidden in the wild. Find a treasure-filled cache, take a trinket, leave another one, and sign the log book to show you've been there. Then put the cache back in place for the next adventurer to find. There are SO many caches in the Newfound area - and most are in beautiful locations. Search by zip code to find directions to them. Fun for the whole family! Geocaching at http://www.geocaching.com/.

When you're done playing, don't forget that Atomic Learning has a website devoted to tutorials so you can learn new programs and skills at your own pace at your own time. http://www.atomiclearning.com

Happy Summer!!!!

NASA & NASD

NASA's Kids' Science News Network (a.k.a. "KSNN") is a standards-based program that uses the Web, animation, and video to introduce science, technology, engineering, math, and NASA concepts. It's divided into primary and intermediate grade levels and addresses topics like weather, magnetism, money, etc. There's much more so check it out. Registration required - but it's free at http://ksnn.larc.nasa.gov/home.html!

Check out Mrs. Gordon's 5th grade website. Her kids read online about the Freedom Trail before they went on their trip to Boston and took pictures of historical places when they got there. Back in the classroom, pairs of students constructed simple webpages incorporating their photos. An "imagemap" of the Freedom Trail was made from a drawn and scanned map and kids learned how to create links right on it that led to their pages. Take a look at the link below! http://www.newfound.k12.nh.us/bes/freedomtrail.htm

baseball

Play Ball! is part of America's Story from the Library of Congress. Read stories about America's favorite pasttime, how it began, and about its history. Check the reading list for titles of books about baseball. It's at http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jp/bball

Baseball Fact or Fiction is a lesson that's all ready for you to do! Get the kids to the computers, print off the fact or fiction worksheet, and let them research to find the answers to fifteen baseball-related statements. "Through the mid-1800s, players still fielded the ball barehanded" - fact or fiction? Have your kids find out at http://www.education-world.com/a_tsl/archives/00-2/lesson0003.shtml

Math Baseball is a tried and true math game from the folks at FunBrain. One or two students may play, choosing from games involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or combination of all four. Levels range from "easy" to "super brain" and there's even an option to have equations presented in algebraic form. Play ball at http://www.funbrain.com/math/.

Another math game for practicing addition or multiplication is Batter's Up Baseball at http://www.prongo.com/math/. Singles, doubles and homeruns indicate levels of difficulty as your player tries to beat the "Visitors" team before the clock runs out. Uses Flash - so it looks that much better to kids!

And in case you want more, check out Learning from Baseball at http://www.teachersfirst.com/baseball.htm. Lots more reading, science, and games - all about baseball!

math + numeracy

Isn't it funny how kids are fascinated by money? The State quarters certainly proved that! And did you know there's a new American Bison nickel ? That and many other interesting coin facts are presented on this site from from the US Mint called h.i.p. Pocket Change - "hip" being an acronym for "history in your pocket." There are games and cartoons and downloadable books, all to give your students information on the production of coins, their history, and an introduction to coins from other countries. Check it out at http://www.usmint.gov/kids/flashIndex.cfm. Great nonfiction reading for your kids.

The people who built this next website had an nifty idea. This site from Australia features online newspaper articles that deal with mathematical concepts - like number, data collection, probability, chance. Students read the article, then answer questions posed by the teacher. Truthfully, the site is meant for much older students - but the concept could be adapted to any grade level. Could you do this with an article from The Citizen? the Concord Monitor? the Union Leader? Take a look at this site and see what you think. Numeracy in the News is at http://ink.news.com.au/mercury/mathguys/mercindx.htm

Webmath says it's "devoted to making the world of math a little less complicated." Fill in the forms and the webpages will show students step-by-step calculations and money counting. The site explains ratios and fractions and deals with the metric system, geometry, and time. There's lots for us grown-up, too. I don't know which was scarier - my age in weeks or my estimated retirement savings! Give Webmath a click - http://www.webmath.com/.

This last one isn't anything you can use in class - although you might be able to use it on a field trip! Roadsign Math challenges travelers to find mathematical properties in the signs we see by the side of the road. Couldn't elementary age kids do this to some extent? Roadsign Math at http://www.roadsignmath.com/. ps: This site reminds me of Deirdre's fascination with adding up the digits on license plates!

And as long as we're talking math, here's a reminder about the Virtual Manipulatives website from a few posts back. It's still hands-down one of the best math sites I've seen.

assessment and reporting

Ahh, progress report time. Here are a few sites for you as you think about assessment - and a few you may want to pass along to the parents you conference with this month.

From low tech to high tech, this short article outlines ways we can use technology to support assessment and facilitate reporting to parents. Techno Tools for Assessment, a quick read at
http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/childdev/
techno_tools.htm

This October 2004 report by the Family Research Project at Harvard outlines the benefits of homework - to parents and to teachers. Parental Involvement in Homework: A Review of Current Research and Its Implications for Teachers, After School Program Staff, and Parent Leaders at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/fine/resources/
research/homework.html

How Can Something as Simple as Reading to a Child Be So Effective? A good article by Jim Trelease, the Read Aloud Handbook guy. You can access it at
http://www.readingrockets.org/article.php?ID=546 - and maybe even send it home.

Aim High! Here's Bloom's Taxonomy- at your fingertips. Click on http://nerds.unl.edu/pages/preser/sec/articles/blooms.html. Enough said.

february days

February may be the shortest month but it's full of special days - the subject of this post.

I'm not sure where this falls in our elementary curriculum - but this is a really good reference for Black History Month. From the History Channel, it covers the history of the celebration, has video clips, the text of famous speeches, biographies of African-American icons, and much more. Go to http://www.historychannel.com/blackhistory/for this site about Black History Month.

You know those little candy hearts with the cute sayings on them? This site tells a little about their history and how they're made. It outlines the criteria for how the new sayings are chosen each year. Did you know every year there's a new category of sayings? Interesting nonfiction for your kids to read at The Valentine's Day History of Candy Hearts found at http://www.factmonster.com/spot/candyhearts1.html

Speaking of hearts, check out this one: The Heart: An Online Exploration is from the Franklin Institute Science Museum and makes for good nonfiction reading about real heart facts for Valentine's Day. Includes a pretty informative history of heart science. Lub-dub, lub- dub, click here - http://sln.fi.edu/biosci/heart.html.

There are lots of resources online about US Presidents and for President's Day. This site is actually a list of links to many of the other sites online. Visit Presidents of the United States at this KidsKonnect site at http://www.kidskonnect.com/Presidents/PresidentsHome.html.

Finally, here's a poem for Presidents' Day - with a monetary twist! Written in an upbeat manner specifically for kids, A Quarter and A Penny will give your students a brief account of the high points of Washington and Lincoln's tenure as President. Click on http://gilchriststudios.com/nlpf/archive/view.asp?presidents for the poem.

reading, writing, & 'rithmetic

From the people at Reading Rockets, a group funded by the U.S. Department of Education, comes this webpage called 103 Things To Do Before/During/After Reading. From improv to writing epilogues, this list has imaginative and fun ways for your students to show their understanding where reading is concerned. I especially like "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern" and "Write Out." Bookmark the entire list at http://www.readingrockets.org/article.php?ID=445.

Writing seems to be a big focus of grade level meetings with all of us reading different books on the subject. Access this site for lists of picture books that can serve as models for elements of writing like good beginnings, focus, voice, sentence fluency, and others. Using Picture Books to Teach Narrative and Six Trait Writing at http://geocities.com/oberry1790/narrativebibliography.htm

Just when you think the Web cannot become any more amazing, along comes a site like this. The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives offers educators online versions of the math manipulatives we have in our classrooms. There are graphs, base ten blocks, geoboards, pattern beads, puzzles - and that's just in one of the sections! Math concepts include number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. The site's divided into PreK-2, 3-5, and beyond. This blurb doesn't do the site justice - be certain to visit! Virtual Manuipulatives can be viewed and utilized at http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/nav/vlibrary.html

locally produced

There are a few things that have lately been put online by or for Newfound teachers. Since this blog is supposed to be a site for inspiration, they are this post's offerings...

Heads up fifth grade teachers! Here's a page of links for the study of the American Revolution. Joyce and I are working with her class as each child conducts research on a personality from the time period and writes a report. The students are then going to dress themselves as the person and talk about his or her life and contribution to the war while being videotaped. Links for the American Revolution is at http://www.newfound.k12.nh.us/bes/rev_war.htm. I can add to it if you post additional sites in the comments section below.

Christmas week I did a quick but meaningful literacy project teaming with BHVS's Melissa and NHCS's Stefanie. We presented the classes with Powerpoint slides of the lines of a Christmas poem, then the children interpreted the piece through class discussion. On their own, each child illustrated a line of the poem. Illustrations were then scanned (or photographed!) and inserted into each slide. Saved as a webpage, it was ready to go online and out to the public as a global holiday message from the children. The hardest part of this project was connecting with the author to get the okay to publish her copyrighted work (thank you, Ms. Watson!). View the projects while they're still online. A Christmas Wish Upon a Star: the NHCS version here and the BHVS one here. Thanks to both ladies and their classes for such thoughtful work!

tsunami

It's hard to know how kids are going to be impacted by this week's natural disaster in southeast Asia. Maybe they were too distracted with Christmas, new toys, and vacation to even notice. Or maybe they saw the videos over and over again on CNN because they happened to be home. On the chance that the subject might come up in a classroom, I offer these two sites for kids, both meant to help them understand how tsunamis happen.

The first - from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who maintain a great site for kids. This information, in storybook format, is based on the tsunamis that hit Hawaii. It explains what a tsunami is and leads the reader through the warning procedure that's in place in countries bordering the Pacific. The illustrations are very kid-friendly. As well as explaining this natural occurance, this might serve to reassure some of those kids who we know are worriers. Tsumani Warning at http://www.fema.gov/kids/tsunami_w.htm.

This next one is from a PBS site. It has a three-part animated clip that shows how the ocean floor can shift causing the water above to do the same and then materialize into a tsunami as it gets closer to shore. This animation can be replayed as you explain how the tsunami happened. The site - Savage Earth-Waves of Destruction found at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/savageearth/animations/tsunami/index.html

new year = new sites

Happy New Year and welcome to 2005 - almost! Here's a site for background information on how the New Year is celebrated around the world. New Year's Traditions at http://mn.essortment.com/newyearsevetr_rllr.htm

Recycle all those Christmas cards while giving your students authentic work with math skills. Careful measuring and folding (and following written directions) will produce the niftiest little boxes - lids and all. Bet they can't make just one! Greeting Card Boxes with directions in .pdf format will automatically download in Adobe Acrobat from http://www.exploratorium.com/math_explorer/greeting_card.pdf.

This might make an interesting reason to reflect and write: have your students compose a Ten Year Letter, to be opened and read in ten years! Content of the letter could be customized according to your own or your students' criteria. And you wouldn't necessarily have to mail them out in ten years - parents could hold them for their children. Details of this project can be found at this very long URL - http://familyfun.go.com/parties/holiday/feature/famf129newyear/famf129newyear2.html

we need a little Christmas, right this very minute...

Only two more weeks 'til the Big Day! With that in mind, here are a few of many holiday links online. If you have others to share, please do! Post them as comments below!

Let's start with December holidays in other lands. This link is to the Multi-Cultural Calendar, a project by the Global Schoolhouse folks. Have your students read accounts of celebrations in other lands by the very children who experience them. The calendar is also searchable by month, by holiday and by country - a good resource even when it's not holiday time here! December Holidays can be found at http://www.kidlink.org/KIDPROJ/MCC/.

You know how fascinated kids are with other languages? Visit this site for audio files of voices the world over wishing holiday greetings. There's also the written greeting as well. The Voices of Christmas at http://www.holidays.net/christmas/voices.htm. Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr! (that's Gaelic...and not found on this site. I got it from Brain Boost - see last post!)

Looking for a new and different Christmas story for your older students? Preview this one - a tale about the origin of Comet and how he happened to become part of Santa's team. It's fiction, I think...The Fifth Reindeer at http://www.soubly.net/Fifth/fifth1.htm.

And here are some stories for the younger set. Elves in Santa's Workshop are making lots of toys and there are stories to go along with each one. Kids can opt to read the story themselves or have it read online to them. There's even an option to print out pages to color. Wait, there's more! Reindeer stories in the Reindeer Barn, Mrs. Claus's stories in the Kitchen...just click around! Stories from The North Pole - http://www.northpole.com/Workshop/. Ho, ho, ho!

At History.org, a historical researcher from Colonial Williamsburg recounts how Christmas was celebrated in colonial Virginia. Interesting that it wasn't a great time for kids! Click http://www.history.org/Almanack/life/xmas/customs.cfm for Colonial Christmas Customs.

Here's a holiday feature where students can design their own TIME For Kids magazine covers. Student choose from pictures posted on the site, compose the headlines (within the space constraints of the online program - using critical thinking!), and write up their own "Top 5" list. Click and the cover magically appears as the student designed it! Print and use the cover as a tie to student writing, having kids write the articles to accompany their headlines! Holiday News Mag-o-Matic available at http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/specials/articles/0,6709,880208,00.html.

Last, here's an online version of that favorite Christmas story, The Night Before Christmas. There's a page for each section of the story with arrows for kids to advance from one page to the next. Too bad the link to have the story read aloud is broken. Victorian illustrations accompany each page.....hey, they look oddly like the ones that were in my Little Golden Book version way back when! The Night Before Christmas at http://www.childrenstory.com/christmas/b41.html.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

science & nature, reading games, and A.I.

The BBC sponsors this website about all things natural. Some of the information is specific to Great Britain - like facts about hedgehogs and ladybirds! But there's enough that's common to our area to make it a worthwhile investigation, especially if you have a class of budding naturalists! Great information at Science and Nature at http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/.

Did you know there's a teacher from Rye who's in Antartica now with this team of researchers collecting and sending data that tells about the "bottom of the world?" This site is pretty technical but it's really interesting and there are activities and information that could be adapted to an elementary level. If you're studying polar regions or cold places, this site may be helpful. And the photographs are great. Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic at http://tea.rice.edu/index.html

Here's a site of basic "skill and drill" type phonics activities, but beginning readers will love them. There are different early/emergent reading levels represented with short stories that stress individual phonetic elements or word attack skills. Long and short vowels, blends, digraphs, compound words - and more. All within the context of games, plays, songs, even a smattering of nonfiction. Give the kids headphones when they work at Starfall at http://www.starfall.com/.

This one's really eerie. Billed as the "no search search engine," the site says it uses totally artificial intelligence to answer questions posed. Type in a question and it gives you websites that provide the answer. I've tried a few times to stump it and so far have had no luck. Truly bizarre. Brain Boost at http://www.brainboost.com/. Let me know if you find a question it can't answer.

search. sing. go back in time.

It's a pretty well-accepted fact that Google is about the best search engine online. Now comes Google Cheat Sheet, a site that teaches you some of the ins and outs of many Google features. It shows you how to maximize your searching and how to use the Google search box as a calculator and dictionary. It gets into advanced operations and some of the other Google services (like Google Catalogs and Froogle - both for shopping!!) My favorite - Google Labs where you can see what the Google folks will be up to next! Google Cheat Sheet at http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html.

Want poems? Songs? Check out this site from CanTeach for an amazing collection of both! Poems are sorted into categories like seasons, special days, animals, math, language arts... and are the sort of poems that work well on charts at morning meeting time! This is one of the most extensive collections of poems for kids I've found on the web. Bookmark the site, copy/paste the poems into an Appleworks document to print - you get the idea! CanTeach: Songs & Poems at http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems.html.

This site is new to me - but I hope you've already seen it and used it because it's amazing! Eyewitness to History touts itself as being "History through the eyes of those who lived it" and covers time from the ancient world straight through to the 20th century and World War II. First person accounts of historical events make for fascinating reading as a teaching resource for you or a nonfiction piece to enhance learning for your students. Before you plan your next social studies units, be sure to visit Eyewitness to History at http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html.

blame it on baseball

The nature of a blog is that it's updated on a regular basis - so that readers keep coming back to check it regularly. My intention was to update weekly and that's not happening. Honestly, when I haven't been doing budget or preparing presentation or planning for classes, I've been involved with the Red Sox and the playoffs. Anyway, I'll keep shooting for a week's time between postings - and hope that you'll understand if longer periods of time go by. I still think this blog idea is a good way to get information out.

First off - Space Day. I know you fifth grades work on the solar system and it's a subject that fascinates all ages. Check out this site founded by Lockheed Martin. The "Mission Fun" section has stellar games and activities. There are lots of astronomy links under 2005 Facts and Links. And if your kids are really into The Final Frontier, check out the 2005 Design Challenges. Students take on one of three space-related projects and, using their imaginations and creativity and the website as a resource, design a solution to a problem. Space Day judges then choose the best solutions and they're featured at the annual Space Day events in Washington in May! Explore Space Day at http://www.spaceday.org

Next, a site for photos. Pics4Learning is a collection of "copyright friendly" pictures - that is, permission has been given by the photographers for student use. You and your kids can use these pictures for instructional purposes, for web pages, and for projects. Find the pictures you want by searching by keyword or browsing by category. Directions for saving pictures are on the site. Check it out: Pics4Learning found at http://www.pics4learning.com/

Finally, check out this interactive Electoral College map of the USA. You can view it several different ways - detailing the votes each candidate has at this point, showing the results of the 2000 election, you can even customize it to show students what outcomes would be if a candidate gained the support of a particular swing state. Fool around with it - it's pretty neat! 270 to Win at http://www.270towin.com/

The other thing that makes a blog a blog - give & take and comments by the readers. I've changed things so that you can reply without having to "register" with the site. Now I hope you will.

spelling practice, literacy, and a follow-up

Here's a place where kids can practice spelling - even the words you choose for them! The site lets the viewer read/spell a word, then click to cover it, type to write it from memory, then check for accuracy. That technique sounds familiar, huh??? There are word lists on the site categorized by phonetic elements or by topic as well as lists kids themselves have generated. But the site also lets the viewer enter in other words for practice - so you could make a customized list for a student. It's pretty slick! Brought to you by a tech-savvy English primary school, it's LookCover at http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/lookcover/lookcover.html

Have I read this whole site? No! What initially attracted me to this site was the online Student Materials area, thinking that a creative teacher could use these internet forms to supplement an existing lesson or book extension. But the actual lessons posted here are wonderful and feature well-known books - so you may be able to use the lessons and the forms. Lessons are grouped by grade level - and they all focus on increasing comprehension and higher order thinking skills. Pick a lesson, any lesson - and try it out. Let me know what you think of the forms, too. The ReadWriteThink website is from the International Reading Association and is at http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/index.asp

Lastly, if you want to follow up on some of the water activities from Friday's visit to Newfound Lake, visit Project Wet's website at http://www.projectwet.org. (Hmmm. Not sure about this photo thing. As much as I'd love to have some graphics here, I'm not crazy about the way it links to the picture site - I may take it off.)

good morning! site and thinking games

Now that you've gotten to know your students some and have begun to establish rules and procedures, I am beginning to come around to classes for a one-shot lesson - to tell students about myself and the new position and to introduce a page of links to information sites that change on a daily basis. The hope is that you might find a way to integrate this site into your curriculum or make it an independent activity or learning center. By the way, I'm still on the lookout for a site that has a good math problem that changes daily - sort of like a Problem of the Day. If you find anything, please send it my way. The Good Morning! Page at http://www.newfound.k12.nh.us/bes/goodmorning.htm

The Discovery Channel runs a great website called Discovery Schools. There's lots of good information here so take the time to browse the site at some point. But in the meantime, check out Brain Boosters, a section with short, top-notch puzzles and games that deal with logic, reasoning, and other creative thinking skills. This site will challenge the mind - even the adult one! And it's fun! Brain Boosters at http://school.discovery.com/brainboosters

handwriting, poetry, and more

This site is billed as "amazing" and it's actually pretty cool! The site generates custom practice work for handwriting and letter formation. Looking at it, I think it's pretty comparable to the Zaner-Blozer system we use. You can choose from dot-trace, dash-trace, or hollow-trace letters, then fill in a form box with a letter, word or sentence that you want the student to practice. Click "make worksheet" - and it does! Looks like it could be a good vehicle for practicing names, spelling words, and more. The site says it's for kindergarten and first grade - but there's also a section for practicing cursive letters. Go figure. Check it out: The Amazing Incredible Handwriting Worksheet Maker at http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/

Here's another amazing site that uses "forms," (like those boxes you fill in with your name, etc when you order things online). This site generates poetry and in formats I know we all use in school - like haiku, cinquain, diamantes, I Am poems, and many more. In all there are 50+ different formats that you or your kids can fill in to make original works of poetry. Have kids work at the computer alone or in pairs or project the page as a teacher directed class activity. Hmmm. Anyone want me to come into their class and do a lesson with this? Instant Poetry Forms at http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/Poetry.htm

Finally, there's ePals, a wonderful site that links up students and classes around the globe. The site's pretty big with lots going on. Not only could your class find penpals, you can locate classes looking for collaborative work on projects. It's a pretty interesting and kid-friendly way to let your kids know there are other countries and cultures out there. Grab your tech log so you can record your hours when you check it out. Please post some ways that you and others could use this site?? Thanks! ePals at http://www.epals.com

testing, 1-2-3....

I've been thinking about this blog-thing for months now. It seems to be a good way to get messages out in an efficient manner. It models technology use and will, on a personal note, enhance my own PIP since the whole concept of blogging is foreign to me right now. And hey - the Democrats and Republicans had blogs, so do news agencies, so why not Newfound?

Is this the best way to communicate resources and ideas and get the technology word out? Will people read it? Who knows? What I do know is that it will give me a place to post resources that I find. It'll help me keep you informed on the progress of tech projects that are going on. It could serve as a place for discussions about educational technology. I'm hoping that some of you interested folk will make checking this site a routine. Maybe this blog will be the impetus to help those of you on the technology fence tip and fall into it. And if it turns out blogging doesn't work for you or for me, well - I can always take a tech-step backwards and bombard your inboxes with emails!

With apologies to Dr. Graziano, I've named this blog Techjaki. Sorry, John. It was just too good an opportunity to pass up.