New Site: Stenross.blogspot.com

Since I'm no longer the 21st Century Technology TOSA for St. Louis Park, I thought it was time to move on from this blog.  I will be leaving it up for historical purposes, but I will be posting from now on here at Education, Philosophy and Technology.  There will be a lot there about educational technology, if you've found this website to be useful, which I hope you have!  

10 Great Sites in Ten Minutes For Educators

Below you will find Ten Great Sites that educators could use to improve their teaching and engage students.

0. Garrison Sites: The inspiration for this list

1. Prezi - presentation video creator
2. Taggalaxy - great pictures from Flikr. Read our review!
3. bridgeurl - create a slideshow of websites
4. wordle - create word clouds
5. jigsawplanet - create a puzzle out of a picture
6. qwiki - uses wikipedia and pictures and graphics to create a short interactive video about a topic
7. dabbleboard - easy way to make webs, doodles and graphic organizers
8. caffein - free video chat with multiple people
   
9. Thinkfinity - a great website with lots of lesson plans and ideas that integrate technology into teaching.
10. Glogster - create posters and
    
11. Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day - Amazing resource with tons of great links and resources
12. SLPTECH Blog - My own website, with lots of resources for teachers.
13. SLP 21st Century Technology Website - District website with lots of great resources for elementary teachers.
    

BridgeURL of Sites.

5 Tips on getting Students Using the Smartboard or MOBI

“Your students are tired of watching their teacher use the smartboard.” - TIES Trainer

1. If you expect most or every student to use the smartboard, keep the activity quick and easy. Instead of having students write with the MOBI or Smartboard, have them just move an object or make a mark.
2. The first few times a student uses a MOBI or Smartboard, they will be very slow. Therefore, allow time for students to play and explore the smartboard during a time when you can help them, like indoor recess or morning work.
3. Morning Sign in: Using the shapes toolin Smartboard Notebook, you can quickly create a shape with the students name on it. Then when they arrive in the morning, they can do their lunch count, make a graph, or even put their name in a Venn Diagram.
4. Have your students use the smartboard or MOBI as a Center. After you have taught a lesson or activity with the whole class, you can begin assigning it as a center. At first, the rest of the class will be a bit distracted by this, but after a few days, it will become just one of the centers they will rotate to.
5. During independent work time, have a few students write their answers on the smartboard or MOBI. This way, when everyone is done, you can go over together the answers together, and you don’t have to make your class wait while the student writes their answer on the board.
   

Update to Great School Websites

Enjoy an update to Great School Websites.

Springfield Township High School Libguide - Lots of great videos and links for podcasting, video making, mindmapping, wikis, blogs, and much more.

Ways to use CPS student response clickers

This will hopefully provide teachers in SLP with a number of great ideas on how they could use their CPS clickers.

1. Homework: Plug the answers to a couple homework questions into Fast Grade, and then engage a student managed mode as the students enter at the beginning of the day. You'll see who is doing their homework, and who is doing it right without having to grade the entire homework assignment. Do some of the questions non-numeric answers? Make some different multiple choice answers for that question.
   
2. Matching worksheet: Got a worksheet that has students matching vocabulary from a wordbank with sentences? Just number the vocabulary in the wordbank, and then have the students put in numeric response for each sentence. For example, if they have a sentence that says "The coldest season." and "winter" is labelled 3, then they would enter "3" for their answer.
   
3. Daily Math Practice: Plug in the answers to the daily math practice through Fast Grade, then as you go over the questions, engage a Teacher Managed Mode, have students enter their answers for each question, and go over questions that students seemed to struggle with. The best part? If you have assigned clickers to students, you'll have a record of what students struggled with what question, which will help you determine which students need support from volunteers and Title 1, or if you refer the student to Special Ed.
   
4. MCA Test Practice: Have your students put in their answers for each question. Go over the questions that students got wrong.
5. Formative Assessments: Have your students put their answers to a formative assessment into their CPS clickers, and then you can quickly determine what areas during the unit you will need to focus on. You can also use it to create flexible groups or to differentiate in your own classroom.
   
6. Summative Assessments: Why spend your time grading, when you could spend your time analyzing your students achievement, and determining what areas you need to focus on. Work smarter, not harder!
   
7. Math Workbook answers: As you walk around during Math work time, it might seem like most students are getting a problem right, but to know immediately, start a verbal mode test, and have students enter in their answer to a representative question. You don't even need to turn on your projector, as you just want a quick idea of how they are doing on the work. If a lot of people are struggling, you can either pull those students back to work with you, or stop independent work time and go back to working in a group.
8. Student Feedback: Keep the students engaged by having them rate their fellow students as their present. One teacher is having students listen to make sure the students included at least 3 details about their topic. Just start a verbal mode for each student and make sure you keep notes of the order students went in.
   

Update to Great School Websites

An update to the great school websites.

Minot, ND Smartboard Lesson Wiki: Repository of Smartboard lessons based on Math Expressions and NWEA MAP math RIT bands.

Update to Best Links for Smartboards and Mobis

Just added to the Best Links for Smartboards and Mobis...

BBC - KS3 Bitesize Science: Interactive videos narrated by a pleasing British voice. Fantastic science, and very engaging!