Mrs. Stork has created a blog for her class. The class is doing a book study and she uses the blog to pose questions to the students. The students leave comments on the blog in response to the question. The students are interacting with each other and the teacher.

This blog takes learning beyond the classroom! The students are able to respond in class, at home, from their cell phones, or wherever they have an internet connection. This encourages students to participate and it gives them an individual platform to have their ideas heard.

This is AWESOME Mrs. Stork! Check out the blog at http://5thgradetag.blogspot.com/

Last week we had several teachers participate in a workshop for PhotoStory 3. Our teachers learned how to take pictures from our digital cameras and turn them into a video production with voiceovers and music. We all shared ideas of how our teachers can use this program in the classroom and ideas for how they can have their students use it. Ideas like: Angle Hunts, Timelines, Noun Hunts, Talking Books, How to Vidoes, Photo Tours, About the Teacher/Student Videos, Visual Poems, Idiom Videos, Visual Dictionaries, and lots more! I hope to see some good projects coming from this soon! Check out the pictures below of our teachers taking pictures for their videos.

I walked into a classroom this week to check on something for a teacher and I saw something great! Mrs. Roach was using the SmartBoard and a PowerPoint Jeopardy game that she created. It wasn’t just a game, but it was a learning experience. They were reviewing Science materials for a test. Mrs. Roach, I was not only impressed with the Jeopardy game you created, but also how quickly and accurately your students could respond to such tough questions. They’ve been educated well! Keep up the good work! You all should ask her for her template and get a little Jeopardy going on in your classroom. The Smartboard isn’t required but it is a nice touch. (Get it, “touch” “Smartboard” you touch the Smartboard.) OK, bad joke!

You can also find lots of PowerPoint Templates and premade PowerPoint Activities in my Educational PowerPoint Resources Galore!!! blog post at http://www.techedknow.com .

Let me know what is going on in your class so you can be highlighted in our BPE Tech Blog!

Last week I had the privilege of joining Mr. Hazlewood in his music class. He had his students using and interacting with the Smart Board learning rhythm. It helped to remind me how important our specials teachers are to our core curriculum. The counting, rhythm and pacing that I saw taking place with his students will certainly be useful in their Math, Reading and Language Arts classes. Not only were they learning pacing techniques they were learning skills that will transcend into writing awesome 4th grade TAKS papers. Thanks for taking your music class up a notch by using technology and the Smart Board, Mr. Hazlewood! Here are some pictures from that day.

Weekly Tech Tip

This weeks tech tip is can be used in Social Studies, LA, and Math.

The site is http://www.visualgeography.com/ . 

Social Studies:

Visualgeography.com has pictures of interesting things from most if not all countries of the world.  Such as this dish from the country of Haiti, in North America.

 Students can learn about other cultures by studying the pictures and notes that are on the page.  Each countries map and flag is shown as well. 

Would you have ever guessed that this picture 

could have been taken on the continent of Africa in the country of Ethiopia.  How awesome is that!!  I know I need to get out more.  But I can’t, and neither can many of our students.  That’s why this type of thing is so important.

LA:

I would have my students write compare contrast papers, express their surprise at commonalities, or even use the pictures as writing prompts.  The writing assignments are endless when you begin to look at these pictures from around the world. 

Math:

The site even gives statistics about each country.  The students can do calculations comparing the countries, and charts showing different data.  When I compared the US to Brazil I didn’t know how much alike in size we are. 

U.S.A. is 1.1 times bigger than Brazil
U.S.A. has 1.6 times more inhabitants than BrazilU.S.A.Size: 9,631,418 sq km
Population: 298,444,215 inhabitantsBrazilSize: 8,511,965 sq km
Population: 188,078,227 inhabitants 

I’m learning lots from this site and I’m sure your students can also!  Leave a post and let me know how you use this in your classroom.  Enjoy your Technology!