bubbl.us Brainstorming

Brainstorming.  Making bubble maps.  Association games.  Line of flow.

All made possible and quick with bubbl.us

It's a colorful and fast way to make any sort of bubble map with however many directions you want.
Today in class, Elise and Ashley used it as a guide for response to Beeethoven's Moonlight Sonata - what does this piece make you feel?  Does it evoke any deep emotions?  Pictures?  Thoughts?

It was incredible how easy it was to make a full looking bubble map in just a minute, brainstorming.
To make a new bubble connected to the previous one, you just hit enter.  To create a new line just click on the part of the page where you want it.

This would prove a helpful tool in the classroom, I think, especially in preparation for writing timed essays.  It is easy to use, easy to navigate and colorful.

Learning Games

Games have always been a great way to learn - simply because they are teaching while the kids are having fun.  If the game is legitimately teaching and reinforcing some lesson - of math or grammar or anything - then a game is a great and subtle way for the kids to learn and strengthen and deepen their understanding, in a way that creates a natural affinity to learning and a love for learning

Timelines - Preceden.com

Timelines can be extremely useful in a classroom, especially for visual and tactile learners.  They help make events, especially in history, make sense.  They give you perspective on the bigger picture of life, people, and history.  Timelines can be a good main point review for students, as well as being a good way of condensing a lot of material.

Timelines though are certainly useful in more than just history though.  They can be used to represent eras in literature or they ca be used to represent a timeline of discoveries in the science field and much more.  They can even be used to illustrate the plot of a book you have read to your classroom.

Preceden.com provides an easy access and easy-to-use way of implementing and creating a timeline.

Google Docs

Google docs, theoretically seems like a great tool.  It's a neat way for everyone in a classroom group to access the same document at the same time, without the crowding that a tangible document, posterboard, etc might bring.

However, I personally have found a lot of stress dealing with it.  It may just be user deficiency... but until I gain greater skill in navigating and managing it, I think I would refrain from using it in my own classroom.

Meal Planning and Calories

I am not actually one for counting calories.  In fact, I avoid it all costs.  I don't like thinking about the numbers and the potential related fat cells that they entail.

However, I think that for many middle school and high school students, this would be a good way to count calories.  In a fast-paced and ready-made food lifestyle, this would be a good way to count them.

But on the flip side, I think that eating healthy is more a matter of eating more natural foods rather than eating foods with fewer or better calories.  The closer you eat it in the form that God made it, the better it is for you (obviously this does not apply to meat...).

Zefty... Thrifty? Nifty? Or Iffy?

zefty.com

Bank accounts, checks, savings, money....

It all sounds like a fantastic way to help set up your kids with the "real world" to introduce them to the world of money and finances.

But is it really?

In zefty.com, the kids don't actually control their own finances - their parents deposit any money, they have no control over how much they save.

Instead of being able to withdraw from their accounts, they have to write a check - but the check is only made out to themselves; they cannot address it to another person, a company, a church.

So my question is: is zefty.com really a helpful tool for kids?  Does it actually represent the real world of banks and money?

My personal answer would be no.

When I was a child, my daddy did give me an allowance (real money). 

I had charge of that money.  I decided to set up a savings account. 

So he drove me to the bank (the real one).  We sat up an account together (one has to have one's parent's name on the account if under a certain age).  And so I saved up.  I carefully put together my pennies and quarters.  Although I did spend some of my money, it wasn't too much - a little for the contribution plate on Sundays and sometimes a small item (a Grand Champion horse).  I learned the value of my savings account's interest.  I learned the slow process of keeping money safe.

I learned the reward of it all when I bought an American girl doll - with my own money.  And I felt independent, a small adult - all because my daddy had put trust in me in something in the real world.

It seems like something worth while for a parent to do today.

Now in a classroom, this could perhaps be useful for "special money."  You would obviously save on paper costs (instead of printing cash, you'd just keep up with it in your students' accoutns).

But it's still not as reflective of reality.

It would be a neat tool, but not something as applicable as it might be.

ToonDoo

www.toondoo.com

Toondoo would be a great tool in a classroom, especially for your artisitically inclined students, as well as for those who are visual learners.  In an elementary school classroom, you could use it very easily for sequences for science, history, and so on.
For instance, as a review, you could have each student make a cartoon illustrating the phases of the moon or the water cycle.  You could also have a summary practice after reading a story or a book in class - and have each student make a cartoon with main points in each square.
Or as a creative exercise, you could even have the kids practice making political cartoons of a character in history or in today's society!

The only problem with this (as well as with any type of computer-based technology) would be the number of computers available in the classroom.  With few computers, each project would be less effective and less do-able.

Skype to Be...

Skype is a phenomenal tool.
I have used it on mission trips, catching up with friends - it helps people to connect. 

So why not use it in a classroom?
Earlier in my posts, I mentioned a program that connected different schools and cultures and learning environments.  Skype could easily be used to connect with these foreign people and culture.

But what if I'm not in a school system that supports (or can afford) such a program?

Well, I am personally blessed with an immensely divesified family.
On my unit on Australia or marsupials, etc., I could use Skype to call or webchat with my uncle and aunt who live there.  She could show us around her spectacular garden.  They could both talk about the enviornment they live in.  The kids would love their accents.

Or when I do a unit on Civil Rights or oppression in history, I could tie it into apartheid South Africa.  I could skype with my dad who grow up in Rhodesia, another country that struggled with white/black prejudice and oppression or I could talk to my cousin who grew up during the new era of Nelson Mandela. 

The possibilities are endless - all I need is a reliable internet connection... right?

A,B,C... Easy as 1,2,3...

http://www.ezschool.com/EZSheets/index.html
What a practical website - for a teacher, parent, or student!  This website has free worksheets in all subject areas and all grades. 
My coworker, Linda, is a homeschool mom and when I asked if she recommended any websites, this was one of the first.

I love the way everything is organized.  It's clear, easy to see and easy to navigate.  If I have a student struggling in an area, it would be easy to find a worksheet (or even mroe than one) here to use during tutoring sessions.

I know some people (students, mostly...) are opposed to worksheets - that they are busy work.  But if they help the student reinforce what was learned - isn't that the whole point of education?  To discover a thirst for learning and to retain what you have found!

Googlemaps.com

Googlemaps is a very useful tool, used most often in traveling or finding businesses.

AND it can be useful in the classroom as well.

After the group presented in class today using googlemaps as a way to research a field trip, I brainstormed other ways I could use it in my own classroom.

What about teaching a unit on our town's history?  We could look up various places on Googlemaps, such as our courthouse, police department, city parks, and so on.  We could then similarly plan a day trip or even a morning trip and catch as much history as our town could provide!

And away we go!

Another Pluto Moment

Remember when some brilliant scientists discovered that Pluto wasn't really a planet?  That we had all been deceived - that we now had to come up with some new acronym to remember the planets' order - because suddenly our "mom" was no longer giving us "pizza"?

I had a similar moment the other day.

When I was in kindergarten, we each had to write our own original stories.  In those days, I still believed I could earn big bucks writing books.
I know better now.
But after I had written my kindergarten story of Nancy, the pink bear, I (and the rest of the class) were given the opportunity to "publish" our own stories.  I chose the cover and the pages and our stories were printed - in a real life hardbound book!
I also illustrated my story myself.  What an adventure for a kindergartener!

http://www.storyjumper.com/
This website is the twenty-first century version of "your very own" storybook.
Any and every child in your class can make a book - more than one.  Cost is not a factor here - only computer time!
In this creativity focused website, children can create their own books, inserting pictures, icons, and text to make it their very own. 
What a reminiscent tool of my own childhood - yet unlike Pluto, this advances education and adds to it.  Storyjumper does not eliminate books or even drawing or writing on paper. 
Rather it gives students and teachers alike a new and different creative outlet for arts and language.

Blogging?

Blogging is an interesting past time to me.

I journal – as in I keep a tangible notebook of paper where I write my thoughts.  I let very few into those pages of my most intimate thoughts – and those few I let in rarely see inside all the pages – perhaps just a few select ones.

            People tell me that blogging is similar to journaling.  It may well be for them – but not for me.  Blogging for me is very public.  Expressing the overflow of my emotions, the passion of a heart-wrenching day, venting my concerns and frustrations are not something I necessarily want to share with everyone.  Rather I want to write them out – usually as a prayer although sometimes I think I am too ashamed to address my petty concerns to my God.

            But those thoughts are not the ones I want to share with the world.

            With the world I want to share my discoveries – the joys in my life; the people I love; the God I serve; inspirations, helpmeets, treasures I have found in His scripture.

            And blogging is a way of connecting anyone around the world with access to a computer and the internet (perhaps not deepest darkest Africa, although sometimes a small light can shine even there!).

            What a blessing is our technology – and how we tend to ignore it sometimes….

Journal Galore

My Hebreos teacher is an interesting man. Mr. Roeder is full of energy – and fun.
This semester he assigned a daily journal to our class. It did not necessarily have to be from the book of Hebreos (Hebrews – in Spanish), but it did need to be from the Bible and it did have to be a daily journal. Neither did it require no minimum entry length.
The class produced a wide variety of them – not just of notebooks but of styles. Some had more trouble (the boys usually – perhaps girls are just more used to keeping something like a journal).
But it has helped not only with our discipline in reading our Bible but also in our discipline of training our thoughts in English into thoughts in Spanish.
Journaling is something we are allowed to make our own – to write questions and thoughts, prayers and challenge. It has opened our minds, not only to a panorama of the Spanish language but also of God’s word.
It has made us sink our teeth into Spanish and into the text of God’s word – intertwining it into our own lives.
Why not include such a journal in my classroom? That’s what Erin Gruwell did in inner city Los Angeles – when no one else could or would teach those underprivileged teenagers.
Isn’t that my job as an educator – to challenge my students to incorporate what is taught in class into their lives – to allow them to develop their own personalities and to help them form morals, ethics, and respect for God and for people?

Steering in a Sky of... Word Clouds

I know of the existence of word clouds (our university's iKnow program has a link, which can be used, I suppose - but quite honestly only one of my teachers for the past four semesters has used it).

In a tweet by Dr. M. Tatum to the site http://unhub.com/gBPh, one teacher compares four different word cloud tools.  Each seems to be a good and different variant for brainstorming with reading, literature, etc activities.

Can these be integrated into the classroom?  Yes, if a teacher thinks to do so.  Are they any more helpful?  Is it really any more effective to include a word cloud in a lesson?  To have students create their own word clouds?

Yes and no.  For instance, this could just be a phenomenal waste of time.  We could play around on our computers, spend hours "brainstorming" activities and never actually do anything.  Or we could only use word clouds for such miniscule activities that do not warrant that much of our attention.
But I think that's unfair.  After all, a blackboard is just as un-useful to a teacher who does not care enough to prepare and provide good and helpful tools for students' learning.

After reading a Shakespeare play, each student could send a word describing themes to create a word cloud.  They could quite literally see the main themes.  Divide the students into groups and have each come up with proofs for each theme.  Or you can choose a couple of main themes and assign an essay writing on it.

The possibilities are endless to a mind open to opportunity.

Learning Styles... Or Teaching Styles?

It's not terrifically surprising that teachermagazine on twitter provides some interesting and helpful articles.
"Teacher in a Strange Land" by Nancy Flanagan is proof of that.
Ms. Flanagan brings up an interesting point - our perception about different learning styles may be a little off base.  In a testing of learning styles of middle school students, the majority of boys showed themselves to be kinesthetic learners.  She poses a retort: "they'd rather be shooting baskets than bubbling in a scantron sheet."

We may or may not believe in different learning styles (especially what students tell us they might be).
We do know, however, if we ask any experienced teachers, that the more (and more different) ways we can present information the better our students will learn.

Once again, students' learning depends on how much we as teachers are willing to put our time and effort towards!

Giving to the Gifted

I was in a gifted program when I was in middle and high school.  It was definitely one of the best parts of my week, actually.  Not only did we do many creative and different activities, we also learned more and learned deeper about different subjects.  I can still remember taking a field trip to Indian mounds after studying about all the different tribes in the US.  We took back flint arrow heads, triumphant after having walked  the same ground as the Indians we ahd studied of.

Mr. Tatum posted a brief article/announcement on his twitter about schools in Texas providing hands-on learning for their gifted programs.  These educators find they need to "work hard to keep up with such students."

What an exciting adventure to embark upon!  To provide lessons that come alive to students - that they can feel and smell and hold!

We can learn much from schools that are trying to improve themselves!

Fly Away!

The other day as I was exploring Twitter, I came across a tweet from one of my teachers, Dr. E. Marvin about google maps.  

It sparked my interest because he included WWII (one usually associates modern locations with google maps).

"WWII HIstorical Imagery in Google Earth" is a pretty exciting article about maps (I know, I know... they're usually boring, right?)

But this one has photos taken from the years 1935-1945 set next to today's images.

There is a marked difference (and I'm not talking about color photography).

What a great way to teach kids about the WWII's battles as well as the encouraging thought that we can still rebuild what was "shrapnell"ed so many years ago?

Imagine this:

Kids climb on board your planes (known on other days as mere desks).

Buckle in.  

Pull on your flying helmet.

Tie your scarf tight.

First we're flying back into time.

Do you see these pictures, kids?  They're from a long time ago, probably from when your grandparents were just babies...

 

http://www.wingdamage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/review-wii-sports-resort-air-sports.jpg

2 Hours and 11 Kleenexes Later

I have seen I am Sam.  I sat on the couch and cried through most of the movie.  I'm fairly certain my fiance's shirt sleeve is considerably damper than it was earlier in the evening...

I am emotionally exhausted at this moment, yet at the same time uplifted.

What a heart wrenchingly beautiful story of a mentally retarded man and his daughter Lucy - his fight for custody.

He may not have the brains of a rocket scientist but he knows how to be exactly the daddy Lucy needs simply because he loves her.  This is a movie that speaks to the depths of human character because it speaks the simplest, yet most profound language ever known: love.

It seems like such a simple task.  To love someone.

And yet, it is so hard.

How can his lawyer Rita love her son Willie?  She is so wrapped up in her work and not having enough time that she cannot help but let her own son slip away from her life!  How can her husband love her?  He's lost his love and replaced her with someone else, leaving Rita feeling empty, lacking, not good enough.

They have failed in the most important part of life.

Mr. Turner, the prosecutor in favor of sending Lucy to a foster family, also cannot see that Sam has the most sought after and rare gift a parent can have.  Instead, he asks essentially the same question over and over again: "how can you help Lucy when she's already smarter than you?"

He doesn't realize that parenting, that family, is not about knowing the multiplication tables.  It's not about being able to tutor your child in history.  There's something much more fundamental.

When at the stand, Sam's simplicity of thought is canonized in eloquent wisdom:
"I...
have had a lot
of time, see, to...
think about what it is...
that makes somebody
a good parent...
and it's about constancy...
and it's about...
patience,
and it's about listening...
and it's about
pretending to listen...
even when
you can't listen anymore.
And it's about love,
like she said."

It's about love.

And Lucy has learned this, the msot important lesson possible in life from her mentally retarded father.  She keeps running back to her daddy because she loves him, too.  She's learned that love is a deep and powerful commitment, one that demands patience, constancy, and the determination never to let the rest of the world separate you from that person.

Couldn't we all learn from Sam?  

All you need is love.

3, 2, 1.... Connect!

http://www.the-art-miles-mural-project.org/

The Art Miles is just one good part of a growing trend toward holistic learning in our world today.  Global Collaborative Learning is a way of connecting knowledge to emotions to actions to students worldwide.  Bickley and Carleton’s article “Students Without Borders” is an interesting depiction of what our world in education may soon become with all the advances in technology and speaks directly of this new prospect in the education field.  Schools in Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Israel and other countries have connected their students in virtual classrooms so they can learn about each other’s cultures and histories through interaction instead of just typical instruction.

            How amazing our technological world has become!

            The entire idea behind global collaborative learning is for the student to learn about some other culture, their history (especially how war affects living conditions, stretching even into today’s times), connect with students from that country and create either some artwork to depict their new found knowledge or a care package to send to those students they had met virtually.

            Children won’t even realize they’re learning.

            I see this teaching approach as not only a useful practice but a needed one.  As one student said, “Before the Machinto Project [a specific global collaborative learning project], I never gave the war much thought.  Now that I know someone living in those situations, I feel compassionate toward them.”  We will be able to teach not only knowledge, but also concern and compassion for how war, famine, and other tragedies affect those all around the world.

            However, I foresee this leap in technology becoming an abyss of separation between developed and under developed nations.  How can a country struggling against the horrors of genocide and starvation even fathom buying and using technology to connect with someone in Europe or Canada or elsewhere?  Yet in fact, these are the very people we, as privileged and blessed members of a developed country, need to be aware of. 

            So the question is – how do we connect, not just with those with access to technology, but especially with those whose concerns are much more dire?

            We begin by conquering our ignorance of the world in general.  Learning of what happens in countries like Sudan and Haiti will bring their needs to mind.

            Benevolence and persistence can bring the light of hope to all around the world, while simultaneously lighting our own path.  Surely we all can learn together to love each other and learn more about each other. with the tools we have in hand.

           

Bickley, Mali and JimCarleton.  “Students Without Borders.” Leading & Learning with Technoogy 37.3 (Nov 2009): 20-23. 4 February 2010 .

Talk So They Can Help You

I once talked with a band teacher who told me his secret to happiness as a teacher.

“Make friends with people,” he told me, “but especially make sure you’re friends with the lunch lady, the secretary, and the custodian.”

His meaning is not at first apparent, but the wisdom behind his words soon becomes clear: spending that extra moment to be kind to those who work around you and with you will help you, besides making your life (and theirs) in general a much less stressful series of events.

            When you make time to chat with the lunch lady, she will start to save you extra bread rolls.  She will let you know when your favorite meatball subs are coming every month.  She will give you her best portions.  When you appreciate her work, she appreciates you.

            When you take time to greet the secretary every morning, she learns your name.  If you remember her birthday, she will remember you when it comes time for red tape and forms.  A good secretary on your side can win you any war.  Everyone knows that it’s not really the dean or the principal or the president that runs an office – it’s the secretary!

            And if you love the custodian, the custodian will love you back.  Got teen vomit on hallway 3 outside your door?  The custodian won’t find other duties to do first if you took the time interact with him or her in the past.

            In Arlene Anderson’s article “Can’t We All Just Get Along?” she expresses much the same idea.  She works as her district’s educational technology specialist.  She is the one who speaks “this foreign language of IT” in layman’s terms for the teachers.  She conveys what the teachers are actually asking (and failing to ask coherently, let alone politely) to the IT crew.  It’s a new position that’s growing by leaps and bounds – and causing the education system to grow and improve as well. 

            Essentially, she’s not a technology specialist – she’s a people specialist.  She understands the most fundamental concept of any social group.  In order for anything to be accomplished, we all have to get along.  Most of the problems that the IT crew and the teachers had were generic communication difficulties. 

            Like your mom always told you “Treat others like you want to be treated.”

            It works – wonders can be accomplished.  Even, and especially, for your school.

Anderson, Arlene.  “Can’t We All Just Get Along?”  Learning & Leading with Technology 37.4 (Dec2009): 21-23.  3 February 2010 .