Hello everyone and welcome back to school!  As you are probably aware you are going to be moving your students through some testing right in the beginning of the school year through a program called NWEA MAP.  This undertaking will be something that will take some time to adjust to but it will give some timely insight to the ability level of each and everyone of your students.

As you work through the information that is available to you one of the pieces of information that you will get will be each of your student’s lexile score.  This is essentially a reading ability level for each of your students.

With this information you can visit the lexile website and find many resources, activities, and even appropriate book titles all aligned to a lexile score level.  Here is the site for you to explore and happy headstart in individually instructing each of your students in your classroom.

Lexile Website

As I have been working hard to catch up on my reading I have found many links to many resources.  Here are two links however that really stood out to me on topics that I get questions from teachers on all the time.

1. http://www.ed.gov/admins/comm/parents/parentinvolve/index.html - This link is to a DOE website that provides an opportunity for leadership, technical assistance and support in the implementation of effective and successful parent involvement programs.  We know that parents are key in helping students be successful in school so here is a website with resources and activities that have been successful for other districts across the United States.

2. http://www.youinnovate21.net/ - This website is aimed at getting middle school students excited about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with the goal of preparing them to become 21st Century innovators.

Enjoy!

The following link will take you to an article in Edutopia Magazine from 2007.  Note that it is about 2 years old and the content in this article describes a small % of the learning that is occuring in our classrooms today in GRPS.  However, even though this is currently a small % of our classrooms I am getting more and more questions on having students use Moodle, submit work via email, using You Tube or Teacher Tube in instruction.  We are moving in a wonderful direction with unlimited resources at our fingertips in the form of technology.  Use this resource to help get you to take that next step in your teaching.

Here is a link to the article:  http://www.edutopia.org/whats-next-2007  Please take a minute to look over the entire article and the suggested ten topics to improve education if you wish but specifically focus on the component of Online Learning: Virtual Valedictory (Sidebar: Virtually Real: Distance-Learning Educators Go the Distance When They Go Offline) as well as Social Networking: TheirSpace (Sidebars: Digital Discussion: Take Your Class to the Internet and Edublogs We Love: Ten Top Stops for Internet Interaction)

These two articles give information on how these resources can be used and most importantly give you access to resources you can use to be successful at getting technology embedded in your instruction.  Let me know if you need more support in getting this off the ground and happy reading!

So you have probably heard the buzz about on-line learning.  Many schools are implementing this type of instruction.  With this phrase you hear the following words: easy, seat-time, credit recovery, AP, scheduling, replacement, unknown, difficult, alternative, and many many more.  This I find to be very confusing as these are words that you should also hear when you talk about on-line learning: accountable, ownership, rigorous, flexible, effort-based, facilitator, partnership, personalized, aligned, 21st century, again and many many more.

I post these two websites with a challenge and that challenge is to read, process, and take into consideration all of the words you see listed up above and then visit the websites.  As you are there however look at how those words apply in what you read about what on-line learning can be and make your list of vocabulary words to give meaning to the phrase, “on-line learning” for yourself.

In our district we now have over 600 classrooms with access to Teacher Technology Cabinets and as many or more that have access to a projection unit or Elmo to Go unit.  Use the following resources to find that video or movie clip that drives home the concept you are trying to get students to understand.  This ability to put a movie out there for students to visualize a difficult concept can be very engaging and reach out to an entire different style of learner in your class.  Enjoy searching these resources. 

 Movie/Video Clips For Classroom Use:

http://www.teachersdomain.org/ – You must register to access media but there is a section of open source material that you can access.  Very convenient and boasts it is aligned to state and national standards.

http://www.thefutureschannel.com/activities_by_grade.php – The Futures Channel Videos.  This site is like the free version of discovery channel videos  - great site with lesson plan and alignment material also provided with most movies.  Note this link takes you to the grade level list of videos available.

http://www.youtube.com/index – I know you know the resource this is just a quick way to view it.  Plus I am adding some more links that take you to certain parts of You Tube you maybe have not explored.  Of course search for videos you are interested in prior to students viewing as the content on this sight can be questionable so you must preview it.

The following are channels on YouTube from Institutions that have some lectures and other useful content.  Again be sure to pre-screen all videos before you show to students:

http://www.youtube.com/ucberkley

http://www.youtube.com/unsw

http://www.youtube.com/usc

http://www.youtube.com/northwestern

http://www.youtube.com/harvardkennedyschool

http://www.youtube.com/odu

http://www.youtube.com/vanderbilt

http://www.youtube.com/carnegiemellonu

Other You Tube Channels to Explore these known to be reliable and for classroom use:

http://www.youtube.com/npr

http://www.youtube.com/PBS

http://www.youtube.com/NationalWildlife

http://www.teachertube.com/ – Site where teachers share video clips, training files, blogs, and other material appropriate for school age children.  Students are made by teachers and their students.

http://www.hotchalk.com/index_new.html – Web Community for teachers, students, and parents.  This site allows access to decades of news archiving, including direct news footage and discussion opportunities for the classroom.  Registration is free and so are some of the resources although some resources have to have a paid membership to access.

The Macul Conference is coming up in Mid-March.  It is in Detroit this year but it is a great way to get an opportunity to get exposure to instructional technology and how teachers around the state are meeting HSCE and GLCE demands.  If you get a chance explore the main site you can even get some good technology exposure through that.  Happy Hunting for resources and if you are interested in communicating virtually with instructional technology enthusists throughout the state also look at MACUL Space.

Please click on and view this document to explore the different website resources to help you work with students.  Included in these websites are lesson plans, interactive games, manipulative simulations, and much more.  Enjoy exploring these resources that should boost your resources available to you in your classroom!

Hotlist for Math Websites

Please click on and view this document to explore the different website resources to help you work with students.  Included in these websites are lesson plans, interactive games, manipulative simulations, and much more.  Enjoy exploring these resources that should boost your resources available to you in your classroom!

Hotlist for Reading Websites