Online with Barack Obama

Happy New Year!

2009 will bring us a new President. Like Michelle and I, Barack Obama thinks about technology. He has a website, used Twitter during his campaign (I wonder if he'll continue after he becomes President?), and has a Blackberry to text message. He has Facebook and MySpace accounts to social network. But most importantly, he will appoint the first ever United States Chief Technology Officer.

Learning Online

If you're like Gayle and I, the holidays are a great time to spend a little time learning something new. Last week, Gayle shared several excellent tutorial sites for learning new technology skills.  If you're looking for new teaching skills too, here are some thoughts that will help you meet your professional development goals.  The best part?  None of these require travel - all it takes is a comfy chair, a computer, and time to sit back and learn!

Gift of Time - Technology Tutorials

Ever feel like there's just not enough time to learn technology? I like to use time-saving technology tutorial videos. I can watch the short video specific to what I need to learn. So here's my gift to you- My favorite links to technology tutorials. Maybe during your holiday vacation you will have time to learn from at least one of them. We'd love to hear from you about your favorite tutorial links. Share your comments in our comment section.

Holiday Compu-Crafts

Looking for some fun and easy holiday crafts?  Every year around this time, my computer lab would be filled with busy student elves who worked to create holiday gifts for mom and dad.  Here are a couple of favorites from my computer lab.

Primary Grades: Make a Holiday Card

In primary grades, we combine learning to read and recognize our shape names with creating an illustration that can be used on a holiday card.  Using a drawing program like KidPix, have students create a Christmas tree with the following instructions:

Think Global, Think Technology

Thinking about global awareness and technology at the same time makes sense to me. Technology makes teaching about global awareness so much easier. There are a plethora of resources online. Here are a few of my favorites.

One of my favorite global resources is Scholastic's Global Trek. Not only do the students learn about other countries and their people, but they are able to keep a travel journal about their learning.

Tech for All: Accessibility Tools

You might think that accessibility is a concept you need only think about if you have a special needs student.  However, there are tricks and tools built into your computer that make it a better learning tool for all students.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

Vision

Projectors are great tools for sharing a single computer connection with the entire class.  However, text can be tough to read at normal size when projected. Both Mac OS X and Windows Vista have a Zoom feature built-in.  I like to use zoom when we're reading a text passage from the computer together.  Making the text bigger means that even the students in the back row can easily follow along.  Here's how:

I'm Thankful

I know it’s rather thematic to list what you are thankful for at this time of year. However, Thanksgiving is a time when many classrooms are creating projects and writing around the topic of being thankful. You know that one of the things I'm thankful for is technology. It opens so many doors to resources. Scholastic has a terrific online activity resource based on The First Thanksgiving. Here are a few of my other favorite online resources for being thankful and Thanksgiving.

Math Techxplorations

Math.  Technology.  Exploration.  Three words that go together well and are the focus of this week's post.  I was a math teacher for over 10 years, and for several of those years, my classroom was the computer lab. It gave me the perfect opportunity to explore how technology and math can come together. Here are some of my favorite web resources and ideas for all grade levels:

Yes We Can!

What an exciting week this was! It was so exciting watching Election 2008 come to an end. It was exciting to listen to President-elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech. It was exciting to watch and listen to the reaction of the people. It was exciting to read and listen to the reaction of the children. It was exciting to have the political commercials and mail come to an end. It was exciting to realize the effect this election has on our nation and on the global community. It was exciting to hear "Yes We Can!" over and over.

We need to keep the "Yes We Can!" momentum going in our classrooms and in education. "There are two reasons why people learn one because someone said you can't and the other because someone said you can." according to Howard Wilson Retired NZ Principal. So let's make sure that we keep "Yes We Can!" in the forefront of our planning, teaching and learning.

Technology Tricks and Treats

Halloween's here and what better time to share a couple of laptop management tricks I use with students as well as a few treat-worthy sites to make you and your students smile!

Technology Tricks

Trick #1: Show before they go.

Technology is a very motivating (and sometimes distracting) tool to place in front of a student.  Before you start a task, spend time going over directions and showing an example of what they will be doing.  If you have a computer attached to a projector, use it to walk through the process students will need to follow to be successful.  Taking the time to go over procedures first will save you lots of time in the end.