Mr DK’s Blog

Mixed ideas from a freenology presentation at NECC 08:

www.Polleverywhere.com

www.gcast.com

www.tripforteachers.org

www.freerice.com

www.ikeepbookmarks.com

www.twitter.com

www.jott.com

www.4teachers.org

www.op97.org

www.loc.gov/teachers

www.wolfram.com/edu

www.professorgarfield.org

www.vocabulary.com

www.tigerlogic.com/chunkit

www.teachertube.com

www.myhaikuclass.com

www.virtualspacecommunity.org

www.netsmartz.org

www.hippocampus.org

www.wetheteachers.com

From historic footage to the latest events, NBC News and HotChalk will help you bring the real world into your classroom in a safe, secure online environment built with you and your students in mind.

Our new Middle School block is taking shape.  We should be moving in at the start of the next academic year.  The following gear would complete the rooms:

SMART Board 600i IWB

The BIG selling point of this system is the location of the projector directly above the IWB.  No shake or allignment issues that are associated with ceiling mounted projectors!  The placement of the projector also reduces shadows and any light from shining in the teacher/student’s eyes while working at the board.  Other benefits include an integrated control panel for other AV attachments like a DVD player.

USB speakers would complement the above system, adding sound to the IWB experience.  They have the added benfit of having a USB slot on the front for fast loading of files that need to be shared, eg if a student has  produced a piece of woerk that is goinhg to be presented.

Move away from the IWB  and get amongst the students. How can you have a student at the IWB, move around the room, and control/add to the content being displayed?  Impossible?  Not with an Airliner wireless slate.  With this slate two people can write on an IWB.  It is wireless and can be used from anywhere in the room.  This is an affowrdable must have teaching tool.  I’ve used one – it is dead easy and will give a teacher so much more flexibility in terms of movement in the room.  Step away from the board!

This  Trailfire plugin caught my attention because although I often identify specific sites for my students to use with inquiries, they do not always successfully retrieve the requisite information. To be able to leave pointers, suggestions, questions and guides along the way is brilliant.

While the web is the ultimate resource for finding stuff, it is very hard to sort through it all. You start at your search engine and click around to different pages until you come across just the right collection — the pages that make sense of the search. But a Google search on “digital camera” returns more than 100 million results. It’s overwhelming.

Trailfire rewires the web to your interests. It guides you as you browse, suggesting where you can find information related to any page you’re on at anytime. It also lets you make your own connections on the web – to link pages that relate to a topic from your own point of view.

TakingITGlobal.org is an online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities. It’s the world’s most popular online community for young people interested in making a difference, with hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month.

The My Hero project is a non-profit web project that celebrates the best of humanity.  Most definitely worth considering.  Fits in well with the school ethos and MYP philosophy.  

Our mission is to enlighten and inspire people of all ages with an ever-growing internet archive of hero stories from around the world. Now more than ever, children, teachers, and parents yearn for messages of hope and courage to face the challenges that lie ahead. The MY HERO web site hosts thousands of stories of remarkable individuals written by children and adults alike. These stories serve to remind us that we all have the potential to overcome great obstacles and achieve our dreams by following in the footsteps of our heroes.

MY HERO invites you, your family, school or organization to take part in this interactive web project. By publicly honoring your hero on this award-winning site, you reward those who have made a difference and bring a new hope to this global online community.

Follow this link for some useful SMARTboard – IWB links and resources that Lori has put together:
http://smartteach.pbwiki.com/

Ever wondered what your carbon footprint is? Use this kids calculator with your class – I plan to incorporate it in our integrated Humanities-Mathematics unit “The Debate of our Times”. I was shocked and embarrassed to find that if everyone lived the way I do that it would take the resources of 4.5 earths given the current world population…

I tried this software out. Not only is it is an affordable solution for professional looking ‘TV’ and video, but it is easy to use. No expensive teleprompter, lights, additional monitors and computers are needed. The presenter using it was connected via a webcam and had green material pinned to a background board. I would love to see my students using this software and ‘broadcasting’ around the school (via wifi). This is a must for the sandpit.

Adobe® Visual Communicator® 3 software provides everything an educator or student needs to create video presentations that look like a TV-quality broadcast. Ideal for project-based learning, distance learning courses, and campus-wide newscasts, Visual Communicator provides a teleprompter, video editing capabilities, and a library of customized graphics, effects, titles, music, and templates so you can easily produce video presentations that have the impact of a television newscast. With Visual Communicator you can deliver presentations via e-mail, the Internet, CD, DVD, or live over a Channel One closed-circuit system.

simSchool is a safe environment where trainee teachers can experiment and practice new teaching techniques without endangering real pupils. I think it might be a good refresher for some teachers that are getting a bit long in the tooth too!
www.simschool.org