Useful Information In and Out of the Classroom 1/15/10

Here are some interesting sites that I’ve found this week, thanks to my Personal Learning Network (PLN). 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!

Educational Applications of Sketchup – I have mentioned Sketchup before but this chart really helps to put it in perspective.

Great Scavenger Hunt Contest – free contest to encourage reading;

1) To participate, your readers (called hunters) will look at the list of participating books in your collection and choose one that looks interesting. The program was designed primarily for readers age 8 to 19, with a maximum eligible age of 19.

2) The hunter reads the book, prints out and completes the associated trivia challenge, and turns it in to you to check. (Hunters may complete new trivia challenges as often as they would like. The more, the merrier!)

3) You’ll check the trivia challenge against the answer key (more on this in your confirmation email). A hunter must get at least 8 out of 10 answers correct to be eligible for the monthly contest.

4) When a hunter gets at least 8 answers correct, you will enter them in the contest via the online contest entry form. (Details on this are also in your confirmation email.)

Skype An Author Network – “The mission of the Skype an Author Network is to provide K-12 teachers and librarians with a way to connect authors, books, and young readers through virtual visits.”

This Week in Rap - “A week's worth of news, rapped. New every Friday.”

MathTrainTV – “Mathtrain.TV is a free educational "kids teaching kids" project from Mr. Marcos & his students at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, CA. Mathtrain.TV was created by middle school mathematics teacher, Eric Marcos. It is part of the Mathtrain.com Project and was created to host our student-created math video lessons all in one place. It is Web 2.0 friendly with its ability for users to generate "ratings" and "comments". Our middle school students use a tablet pc and screen-capturing software, Camtasia Studio, to create the math tutorials. The site is powered by PHPmotion, a free video-sharing software.”

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original image: Tools by Pat Hensley