Friday, March 7, 2008

Useful Information In and Out of the Classroom 03/07/08

Here are some interesting sites that I’ve found interesting this week. As a teacher, I feel we have to keep up to date concerning research in our field and current issues in the education system. I hope some of these inspire you, inform you, and even have you asking questions. Thank you for coming by and visiting!

Classroom Instruction That Works – shows how technology can be integrated with these strategies to improve student learning

Secret History of the Credit Card – lots of good information we need to share with our students about credit cards

Safety and Social Networking – great article about “How can we maximize the learning power of participatory Web sites while ensuring students are protected and behave responsibly?” Written by Alec Couros whom I follow on Twitter. I have learned so much from listening to his ideas.

Pixton – user generated comic strip

Digital Wish – information about grant opportunities

TeachKind – free lesson plans and materials that will help students develop critical-thinking skills, empathy, compassion, and civic responsibility while empowering them to take compassionate action for animals in their own communities. Of course I like the idea of free and the curriculum kits seem to come with a lot of material.

3 comments:

Alec Couros said...

Thanks for linking to the article. It had to be edited heavily to get into the Magazine, so there is a bit missing, but I think you get the jist of my argument.

All the best!

Anonymous said...

I am a great believer in the power of social networks for education and learning but do not think that the "commercial" sites (MySpace, bebo, facebook, etc.) are suitable for using in the classroom for a variety of reason. Teaching with (as opposed to about) social networks means that we need to involve more that just the early adopters and ICT enthusiasts in working with their pupils in the social network environment. For this to happen you need a social networking space that both pupil and teacher can feel comfortable in, where e-safety is paramount, and where collaboration can take place across schools wherever they are. A new service has been launched in the UK - The Learning Landscape for Schools where the e-safety aspects of the site are key. (I'll declare an interest in this as I am its Director!). Schools register and accounts are created on request so all activity can be tracked.

loonyhiker said...

john hackett: Thanks for the link to your site. I will check it out. And thanks for reading my blog.