Sunday, November 14, 2010

Interactive Whiteboards

Yesterday a group of 19 educators from our school district and beyond gathered to learn more about the Promethean Board. Thanks to Jen Genshock, a Promethean consultant, and Robert Pohl, Coordinator for Instructional Technology in the Northshore School District for providing us with such a comprehensive overview!

Ideally, we'll all construct our own flipcharts based upon our specific curriculum and needs, but timewise, that isn't always a reality, especially for novices. Whether you're building your own flipcharts or tweaking pre-made ones, there's a lot available to make your job easier.

Promethean Planet offers a wealth of teacher-created and commercial resources, particularly for elementary teachers. It's not the only place to find interactive materials for use on your whiteboard (IWB), though.

The National Science Center in Augusta, Georgia, for instance, has put together links to tools that can be used across the grade levels and curriculums. The list is divided by curriculum areas and subdivided into elementary, middle, and high school categories.

Brainpop Educators has resources for the Promethean Board. You may have to join the site to access the tools.

Check out this blog from Australia with some great ideas for using popular apps like Google Earth and Prezi with your IWB.

KScience out of the United Kingdom offers flash animations for science that will add a lot of pizzaz to your lesson--and increase understanding for your students.

High school math and science teachers should take a look at Absorb Learning for free IWB resources in chemistry, electronics, math, physics, and advanced physics.

You can find wildlife films and videos to embed in your IWB lessons at ArKive. They can be searched by species or geographic location.

freezeray is another place to look for visuals for your high school science flipcharts. Biology, physics, technology, chemistry...in fact, I've found some great interactive examples of simple machines in the technology category that I plan to use with my 6th grade class when we study pulleys.

Biology in Motion is a resource I'll definitely make use of in our life science units.

Hmmm....looks a little heavy on science here, but that's what I'm especially interested in using my Promethean Board for at the moment. (-;







Friday, August 6, 2010

Diigo

I mentioned Diigo in my first post; I switched from Delicious to Diigo last fall because I like both the ease of saving bookmarks and the potential for collaboration. Diigo has added a classroom component that I registered for a couple of weeks ago. Right now I'm just waiting for some finalized class lists so I can start inputting student names. This will allow my students to share resources with each other as they work on projects together. I'll be able to set up folders with links instead of constantly creating web pages--and best of all, we can all access it from anywhere!

diigo education pioneer

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Thinking about technology

Every teacher should have a blog. Every tech director should have a blog. Well, that's what I've been reading, anyway. So, I'm starting this particular one to focus on technology in education. Not the hardware aspect of it, although my biases may creep in a bit, but about technology tools and how they can be integrated into our already overflowing curriculum. What works? What doesn't? (Yeah, I've had my share of flops...)

The first thing that I'm going to recommend is that every teacher on the planet subscribe to Free Technology for Teachers . The way I make sure to read it daily is to have an RSS feed on my iGoogle desktop.

And, second, get yourself involved in (at least one) an online PLN. Local, regional, whatever...just get involved. A network of other educators that share your focus and interests is invaluable.

Lastly, whether you choose Delicious, Diigo, or another, make sure you're social bookmarking. Diigo is my current preference, with a classroom component that I can't wait to use with my middle school kids this year. Look me up there, and then please, please, please join the Olympic Peninsula group! That way we can share sites relevant to our magnificent little corner of the universe.