Election 2008!
In the current issue of SLJ there is an article titled Fab Websites on the 2008 Presidential Election. What more teachable moment could you have? This election will be historic no matter what outcome it has, so I really appreciated Eric Langhorst’s article that suggests several good websites and resources for teachers to use before the November election.

Picturing America (NEH)
The article in SLJ is to notify public schools and libraries of a program from the National Endowment for the Humanities called Picturing America. They are expanding this program which gives 40 posters depicting American art and history to schools and libraries around the country. The link to apply to receive the posters is here. You may also see the wonderful artwork that is included in this project at the NEH website. Hurry, the deadline is October 31st, 2008.

International Society for Technology in Education
According to their website “ISTE provides leadership and service to improve teaching, learning, and school leadership by advancing the effective use of technology in PK–12 and teacher education.” It is a resource place for many useful publications, finding jobs and job seekers, getting technology education, and learning the recommended standards in technology for students, teachers and administrators. ISTE is a nonprofit organization and benefits from becoming a member can be found here. I have appreciated this organization for the guidance NETS provides, and as a place for me to learn more about education and professional development throug their Second Life presence on ISTE island.

Library of Congress
According to James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, “The Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections.” It is a vast website that you can wander around in for hours. I love best the Digital Collections area, where you can find old newspaper articles, wonderful collections of historic photographs, maps and so much more. There are separate resource areas developed for kids and families, teachers, librarians, publishers, researchers and visitors in this website and each of them is specially designed to meet the needs of that particular group.

American Library Association
The ALA website is getting a makeover and you can see what it look like here. As they complete the changeover this fall, you can still access their old website. The ALA’s mission is “to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.”
the ALA has provided many scholarships and awards over time, including the prestigious Caledecott and Newbery awards that are given to authors and illustrators each year. I use it professionally as well when making careful purchases from my media budget as I usually scan  the Children’s Notable Lists for good ideas for our media center.

School Library Journal
SLJ is not only a wonderful print journal, it also has a great online presence as well! All of the current school library news, current trends, interviews with authors and illustrators will be found here. As a media specialist, SLJ is one of the resources that I can rely on for excellent reviews of current titles that I may purchase for my media center. It’s just one of the best!

Here’s a quick look at a few recent articles from three areas of Education World:

Professional development:
Teachers Must Earn Students’ Respect by Professor Joe Martin.
This article deals with an issue that is a concern of many teachers, mainly how to earn the respect of their students, or more to the point, how to have your students behave respectfully toward you as a teacher. It is Professor Martin’s contention that you cannot expect today’s students or parents to go along with the idea that a teacher is to be routinely respected without question. I am from and era of students that did follow that idea, so it is still surprising to me when I see behavior in today’s students that is less than respectful and is sometimes more than difficult. As teachers and educators, we have all learned that there can be many reasons for any particular student behavior in a classroom and we have become adept at helping students to move forward and become better able to become good citizens of this world. Frankly, I think today’s classroom teacher’s are amazing people, considering the situations they face on a daily basis. I truly appreciate the efforts that my co-workers put forth each and every day to help their students achieve in every way that they can.
That said, I appreciated Professor Martin’s suggestions for gaining respect in this article. It is good to be mindful that students who are meeting me are also “sizing me up” when we meet in the classroom.  If I want a student’s respect I must assure him or her that I am going to teach something that is important and that I mean what I say.  I especially agree with his contention that “as teachers, others should want what we have.” With this statement, Professor Martin is talking about good character, which in his words is “something money can’t buy, but everyone admires and respects –even if they don’t like you personally.” We all recognize the teachers who are genuine, and students do as well. Good food for thought here.

30 Ways to Show Students You Care! by Marty Kirschen
This article was written by a career television executive who became a teacher of autistic children in LA. I am a media specialist who sees pretty much all of the students in my building every three days. I appreciate the reminder here that it is important to show students that you do care about them, as I do not see them each and every day, but I do get to know them quite well over time. For me it is the hectic switch of classes every 45 minutes during any given day that can often hinder the “caring” process. Here are some of the “takeaways” that came to me from this article.

Professor Martin suggest that compliments are good, especially for students who do not get noticed positively very often. Acknowledge effort, try to remember little things about a student, take time for a student who is upset. Small gestures, such as rewards for no particular reason, accommodations to particular needs and personal contact with parents are all positive goals to have.

He also suggest that you show your caring in non-verbal ways, and that you should pause when ending a conversation with a child and make eye contact so that child knows you aren’t just rushing off to the next thing you need to do. Wow, this is an area I could work on. I often feel as if I have a stack of kids lined up for my attention, and it would be wonderful to actually attend to each student and give them the feeling that their needs were met.

The suggestion to “seek and express the good” was helpful as it reminded me to check in with the classroom teacher for more information about challenging students before a negative pattern develops with that student.

Lastly, I appreciated the suggestion that you should “allow your weaknesses to show”. I think that it’s always a balancing act with students, but I agree with Professor Martin that when your students know that you are a person who can make mistakes, just like them, it helps to create a climate of caring in your classroom.

Technology Integration:
Sites to See: Falling for Autumn
Here’s another timely website for busy teachers. What I like about it is that it has links to autumn-related websites for primary and intermediate grades that allow the students to do research and have fun. What better combination could there be?
Autumn Leaves had printable templates that helped students identify types of leaves while making their own booklet. Very nice. Awesome Autumn looks perfect for some guided leaf research with grades 3 and 4, and Primary Games-Fall Fun had interactive games and some cute fall stationery that you can print out and use for writing activities in your classroom. In addition to highlighting these websites, this column listed several more autumn related websites to visit and use.
FIVE for FUN by Doug Johnson
Doug Johnson had a column in the Technology Integration part of Education World, and his name immediately caught my eye as he is a well respected technology director (and media specialist at heart I believe) from my state of Minnesota. It was great to read his column and try out the free online image generators that he recommended for online “fun”.  I am fortunate to have Adobe Elements in my computer lab, and I am able to at least introduce my students to some of the aspects of digital imagery and editing. Doug Johnson presents five FREE online tools that help you to do interesting things with digital images, that as he says in the end “perhaps it’s enough that they are just plain fun!” That said, it might be best to go directly to his article to read his take on each of the tools, but I will also list and link his favorites here:

Motivator allows you to quickly and easily create motivational posters. OK, I love this one and want to use it soon. I can think of so many ways to have students use this online tool. It allows you to upload photos and create your own motivational text to go along with it. If you want to put out a few dollars, you can also purchase a professional poster print online. It’s not terribly expensive either.  Here is a photo from a trip I made this summer, just to try it out.

ImageChef is another multimedia offering. There are a variety of effects to achieve that have some similarities to the Fodey Generator.

Cameroid is great for all kinds of special effects from your webcam. I did try a few different images, but the alien head me seemed compelling somehow.

Use the BeFunky Cartoonizer to create cartoons from photos.
The Fodey Generator is similar to ImageChef and allows you to add text to your images. I had some fun creating a newspaper banner at this site. All of these websites are new to me, and I look forward to trying some of them out with students who will also benefit. Thanks Doug!

Lesson Planning:
Constitution Day
Ever since I read that it is a mandate for teachers to teach about the United States Constitution on September 17, I have felt a responsibility as a media specialist to be sure that I have provided materials for the teachers in my building to do just that. I already had some books, but I did buy a few more at  different grade levels, and I also purchased two videos, one at the primary level and another at the intermediate level. So, it was really nice to see this column in Education World on Constitution Day, because if offers internet links to even more constitution related information that teachers can use to teach this topic, and it also reminded me to tell the teachers in my building about what is available to them. For the first time, I am also thinking that this would be a good lesson for me to introduce or teach at some grade level. Particularly with the election coming up in a few weeks, I think it’s just an excellent opportunity to expose our students to the current events of the day and the important foundations that our country is built upon.

Hurricane Watch!
This lesson planning article caught my eye because it is inevitable that I get requests for help from students to find books about hurricanes, storms, tornadoes, lightning–well you get the idea. It’s so important to have them readily available and at hand. One thing I’ve noticed is that if there is any other student  in the vicinity of the “seeker of storm or hurricane information” they will then be drawn to the subject as well. Do I have enough for them? Funny how that happens! Our 2/3 grade level also does a unit on weather, so it’s good to have a variety of weather related information when they are involved in their unit of study. So many reasons to key into this lesson planning activity and I am happy to have found it. I will most surely use some of the hurricane tracking, mapping and especially hurricane naming activities with them during the coming school year.

ArtsEdge
The first feature of this website that caught my eye was the Podcast Library. You can subscribe to a number of their arts related and classroom ready podcasts right through iTunes. Do a search for ArtsEdge to access many interesting offerings (many of which seem geared to high school age) such as Jazz in DC, The Art of Hip Hop, Xploring Xtremes and many more.
ArtsEdge “supports the placement of the arts at the center of the curriculum and advocates creative use of technology to enhance the K-12 educational experience.” The focus is in aiding teachers to integrate the arts into their own content areas. It is one of the programs of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as well as being a content partner of Thinkfinity.

If you are looking for arts related lesson plans, go to the Teach tab and click on Lessons, then Teach. You will be directed to a page that allows you to narrow you search for lessons to particular arts areas (dance, music, theater or visual arts) or subject areas (foreign language, language arts, math, physical education, science, social studies, and technology) and finally grade levels. You can also do a “lessons quick search” and enter a keyword, such as myths for instance. That particular search produced 27 lessons to choose from at varying grade levels. From there I selected Writing Myths (gr 5-8) and found a very detailed lesson plan complete with pdf files to download for the teacher which was a nice rubric to grade the final myth story  and for the student  which included a general checklist for writing about literature, instructions and suggestions on how to write a myth, and a vocabulary list that explains general terms regarding myths.
Decidedly comprehensive!
Edsitement
This Thinkfinity is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Like the others, it is chock full of information, lesson plans and interactive websites for teachers and students to link to. Edsitement focuses on the following subject areas: art and culture, literature and language arts, foreign language and history and social studies.
One timely lesson plan that caught my eye was in the area of History & Social studies which offered a lesson for early elementary students on “The President’s Roles and Responsibilities: Understanding the President’s Job.” In addition to learning about the presidency and what it means to be a president and decision maker in our society, the lesson offers many creative ideas to engage a student through online activities such as “President for a Day!” from PBS Kids, or even writing collaborative books defining “If I were the President…” Sure seems like a great place to explore before the November election.

ReadWriteThink
The International Reading Association is the creator of this content partner to Thinkfinity, and it gives “educators and students access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction“.
This is a very popular website in my school district as it has a wealth of lesson plans and innovative yet easy to use interactive tools that engage students while helping them to learn. I’ve used the Comic Creator interactive tool and Construct a Word (formerly Wordbank) with students, and now I have also learned about the Acrostic Interactive poem creator. I like it because it describes what an acrostic poem is, prompts the student to decide what their acrostic will be about, brainstorm a list of words and phrases and then choose from the list to create their own acrostic! Very cool.
Xpeditions
National Geographic hosts Xpeditions. Like the other content partners of Thinkfinity there are standards-based lesson plans for K-12 teachers and also a wide range of geography related materials, not the least of which is over 1,600 maps you can print! Xpedition Hall, however is a very interesting part of Xpeditions as it offers the viewer a virtual museum to explore. Each room has interactive activities with related lesson plans. Well worth checking out!

I’ll be taking a look at three of the content partners affiliated with Verizon’s  Thinkfinity in this post and three more in the next!

EconEdlink:
If you are teaching a unit on economics and want to find  educational resources you will find a great starting place at EconEdlink. The CyberTeach area has solid information on how to develop comprehensive lesson plans, economic teaching resources, online tools such as a calculator and other interactive games for younger students, a useful and extensive glossary of economic terms that will quickly tell you the difference between gross income and gross pay as well as many other economic terms.  The Current Events area of EconEdlink gives you quick access to lesson plans that relate directly to the current week’s economic news and direct links to economic news stories.  In WebLinks, a website that caught my eye was KidsBank.com which is geared toward elementary aged children and helps them understand the basics of banking and money in an entertaining way. Worth checking out, but your students need to be self-sufficient readers to navigate the website.

Illuminations:
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics maintains this math content area. Here you will find over 100 online math activities to liven up your math lessons. They are nicely organized by grade level, and there is a search box that will help you to narrow your search to particular activities. In addition, there are more than 500 grade leveled lessons to use. All of the online activities and lessons are linked to the national mathematics standard they support. If you want even more, click on the Web Links tab and you will be directed to other internet websites according to the standard you want to meet. 

ScienceNetlinks:
As I look at the science partner of Thinkfinity I am reminded of the science units of study that are taught at all grade levels in our school each year, such as biomes in first grade, insects in second and third, flight and birds in fifth grade, and I can see that ScienceNetlinks would offer enrichment for many of them. In fact Under the Lessons tab, the grade levels are broken down by grade level and it is quite easy to search by grade level and the particular “Benchmark for Science Literacy” that pertains to your unit of study.
If you aren’t sure which benchmark your unit fits into, it is simple to click on the Search tab and type in a keyword such as biomes, narrow down your grade level and come up with great lessons to enrich and add to what you already have. In fact, I did just that and located a website that we in fact use at our school called What’s It Like Where You Live? Biomes of the World. Finally, there is a Tools tab, and there you will find links to interactive websites that are paired to grade levels and benchmarks, with suggestions on how to use them in your classroom. One that caught my eye was the Invention at Play website that has the Invention Playhouse where kids can make clouds, work with interactive puzzles, build a track for a ball to follow, play with words while collaboratively writing a story.
This is such an amazing and extensive resource, and in my next post, I am going to look at more of the content partners associated with Thinkfinity.

” The amount of information presented for this course was amazing.  The contributors were very knowledgeable about their content and the quality of presentations was excellent. The format for this course encouraged collaboration, helped both of us to develop our personal learning networks, and grow in the area of professional development.
This has been a good experience. The resources were user friendly and set up in such a way that allowed us to watch the presentations in audio or video format. Not only that, it was great to have a 24/7 access to all presentations. Now that we are more familiar with the format we have discussed using this and the previous year’s presentations with the staff at our schools during staff development meetings.” Chris Dahl, Carol Midthun

I would also add that it was helpful to me to do this with a study partner, even though watching the webcasts and writing all of the reflections was really a singular experience. We kept each other on task and headed toward completion while eating bagels and drinking tea. It also gave us a chance to talk about and play with some of the tools we had heard about in the webcasts. I don’t know that the format could be changed to allow for more interaction among those taking the course, as it is spread out over time, but that would be one thought I have for  consideration.
This experience has transformed my attitude toward using web 2.0 tools. It has also made me more confident in understanding how to create my own personal learning network. I felt that it was important for me to give back something to the K12Online community and so I have also volunteered to help in some way with it this year.

Well, not really. I am checking out Flickr’s option to directly blog a photo from my Flickr photostream. You can also do this with other photos you may find on Flickr, but remember to use those licensed with a Creative Commons license that allows you to do that. I captured a picture of some of the educators I follow on Twitter from my Twitter homepage, using Jing (a tool I am coming to love more and more!), which directly uploaded to my Flickr account. I like this quite a bit, as I have not always had the best luck uploading photos on my own. Setting up to post directly to my blog was really easy to do and the directions if you follow the link to Flickr are quite simple. It does immediately publish the post, so if you want to monitor that it might be a good idea to just send the picture and add text later.