Making the Common Core EASIER!!!

If you're like me, you're looking for ways to make working with the new Common Core State Standards easier.  The Educational Technology and Mobile Learning site recently compiled a list of "10 Wonderful Common Core Standards Cheat Sheets" and while I only checked out one of the sites, I found the one I did look at immediately useful.

The Common Core Checklists site organizes the checklists by grade level.  Each grade level is then organized by Common Core subject.  Each checklist provides a place for you to record when you taught a particular skill, when you retaught it, when you assessed, reassessed, and when you reviewed it.  That way you're not sitting at your desk reading through assessments, scratching your head, and asking yourself, "I did teach this, didn't I?"  At least with these checklists you can be certain of whether or not you taught something.


I immediately looked at the E/LA Common Core Standards for Writing checklist for grade 5.  It gave separate checklists for each type of writing and was very user friendly.  I'd highly recommend it.

I'd also highly recommend checking out the other cheat sheets Educational Technology and Mobile Learning provides.  You'll probably find something to meet your specific needs!

The Road to Digital Literacy

If you have not yet subscribed to Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, you really should. I would estimate that about half my posts are related to something I found that website.  The most current interesting thing I found is an "infographic" titled "The Road to Digital Literacy".  Infographic is a term I just learned that pretty much means picture that shows information, sometimes a lot of information, sometimes a little information, but all the time, the information is presented in a format that is way more interesting to look at than just reading a piece of text.

But anyway, here's the infographic that can be used with students to explain how to be a good digital citizen.    I think it's easy to understand and easy to follow, and it's especially important because of the amount of time students spend working with technology to meet the Common Core Standards and the NETS for students.

Get Your Great Images Here...for Free!

Ever send your students off to search for pictures of people or time periods and worry about what they might find?  Every time I allow my kids to search for images, I worry about what might pop up because they spelled something incorrectly or used just the right words to find something completely inappropriate.  One solution to this problem might be Google LIFE Photo Archive.  This photo archive is hosted by Google but includes thousands of amazing pictures from LIFE.  The images are sorted by events, famous people, cultures, time periods, and other different ways that make perusing the images interesting and easy.

I think this archive is especially useful for history projects since the way the pictures are archived lends itself nicely to that (there is a huge archive of Civil War photos that would have been super handy when I was working on my animoto).  There are a wealth of images though, so students would easily be able to create digital stories, presentations, or other projects with many quality images.

This is a great resource for safe image searching for kids.  Google also mentions that you can amend any Google image search by typing "computer source:life" after the search. The computer will then only retrieve images from the LIFE database.

Tempting Ways to Teach Typing

If we are going to get our kids to be successful writers in today's digital age, we have to teach them how to type.  Interestingly enough, this doesn't seem to be a priority in my district which drives me nuts!  My students are required to take writing tests on the computer, and I am required to integrate technology into my classroom, yet the district makes no effort to give us a typing program at the elementary level that would help our students be more successful.

That leaves teachers to find their own typing programs that students can use to become better typists so they can focus less on typing and more on putting their ideas down on screen. While I haven't yet found a free program that saves students' progress, I have found a program and a game that encourage typing skills by making them fun.

Dance Mat Typing is a program put out by BBC.  The goat that teaches typing (yes, goat) starts by helping students become familiar with home row so they can actually type without looking.  He's got a British accent (since it's put out by BBC) which makes it funny for my students and he moves through different exercises that are supposed to help them type.  Unfortunately, the program doesn't save their progress, although I guess that can also be a benefit because then students can go back to lessons they'd like to try again.

There are also many games that students can play once they are familiar with the location of the keys on a keyboard.  One program called TypingRocket I found on Free Technology for Teachers page.   It's got catchy music and is meant to be entertaining so students will want to practice.  I know there are other sites out there that allow students to practice keyboarding in interesting ways, and I'm always open to suggestions.

What do your students use?

Creative Classroom Management

Lately I've come across a couple sites that teachers can use to keep track of/manage student behavior.  They're interesting ways to keep students on task and to report to parents about student behavior without completing any extra paperwork!

The first site is called Class Dojo.  Using Class Dojo, teachers can set up their classrooms (you can have multiple classrooms in case you teach more than one group of students) and award students points for positive or negative behaviors.  It comes with many different behaviors already, but it also leaves room for you to edit behaviors so you can keep track of the specific things you want your students doing.  The program is web-based so you don't have to download it, and if you'd like students to see how they are doing, you can keep it projected on a screen.  If you don't want to project it or cannot report back to your computer frequently, there is an app for the iPad/iPhone and there are also directions on how to use it with your Android device.  The best part about using Class Dojo is that you can print out students' daily or weekly results if you'd like to send them home.  You can also give parents AND students their own login information so they can check behavior from home.  It's a great way to keep parents informed about how their students are doing without creating piles of paperwork! Below is a video from the site that can be used to introduce the program to your class.  It makes it sound very benign and friendly.  Videos for teachers can be viewed here.  



Another program that teachers can use to manage classroom behavior is Class Charts.  Class Charts works much like Class Dojo does; there is a screen that shows the names of all students in your current class.  You can assign each student points for positive behaviors or remove points for negative behaviors.  Class Charts has a few additional features that include keeping track of reading levels, put them in groups, and a few other management tools.  Like Class Dojo, Class Charts has parent logins so parents can check up on their students' behaviors, but it does not have a student login portal.  

Both sites seem like good resources for a teacher who would like an simple way to keep track of student behavior.  It's up to the teacher to choose which one they would prefer (I cannot even tell which one I like better, although I'm leaning towards Class Dojo--I like the student avatars better).  

Which one do you think you'd prefer?  Do you know of any other programs like these?

Lewis and Clark Explore the Great Unknown

I'm doing my digital story on Lewis and Clark, a unit that is coming up shortly in our school.  I've got a lot of work to do, including narration, adding pictures, and possibly adding music, but here's a sneak peek of what it looks like so far...

I plan on showing the finished video as a prelude to all the reading and learning students will be doing.  I think this is especially important because I have a few ELL students and several students who struggle with reading comprehension.  Watching this video prior to reading texts about Lewis and Clark will hopefully give them some much needed background knowledge that will assist in their comprehension.

If you can't see the video above, too bad.  No, seriously.  I uploaded it to YouTube and embedded it below so maybe now everyone can see it (I think lots of people can't see if because they're running apple operating systems...at least that's my hypothesis since it worked on three different computers I tried at home...but now I'm rambling, so now onto the show.)

Concerned About Copyright?

Copyright laws and guidelines are tricky, especially with the internet.  With everything we are doing, especially for our class, I thought these guidelines might come in handy.  Just for the record, I found it on the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning site.  It's called the Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers.

Click here for a version you can zoom in on (and therefore actually read)!