Animoto - Refer-a-Pro Summer Special

Animoto - Refer-a-Pro Summer Special: Create Hollywood quality videos from your photos and video clips with Animoto to share with your friends and family. Animoto is one of my favorite resources for creating videos. If you haven't tried it yet, you should. It is easy to use and provides music for you with the credits at the end. Saves you time and energy. Plus the end result looks great.

New Curriculum Now Available in Learning.com Marketplace

It is exciting to find resources that you love to use in your classroom partnered together to be delivered in one location. As I follow the new curriculum items added regularly to the marketplace in Learning.com, I am more in awe of the way integration is taking hold in what we are able to deliver to our students through technology, the places we can take them and the way they can explore their interests to take charge of their own learning.

The digital learning environment that is the Learning.com platform provides a location for teachers to locate digital curriculum, create their own curriculum and assess student learning all in one place. Teachers do not have time to teach all curriculum content in separation, so having resources all in one place seems such a relief. The integration of digital resources into the tried and true classroom environment has made teaching and learning far more exciting than it was.

Learning.com has recently added a few of my favorite digital resources to the marketplace. I recommend that you check them out......

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration): These K-12 free science resources cover the following topics: Climate, Freshwater, Marine Life, Ocean and Coasts, Weather and Atmosphere, and Special Topics.  NOAA’s reach goes from the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean floor as they work to keep citizens informed of the changing environment around them.

Glogster: Glogs are interactive digital posters that allow teachers and students to add various types of content into one location (text, video, audio, images, weblinks and more). Glogster EDU has been one of my favorite resources since they first came into being. Creating glogs is easy and fun. Use it to give an assignment, gather resources for teaching a unit or anything else your creativity can devise. After creating a glog, you can copy the embed code and paste it into a journal or activity on the Learning.com platform to assign out to your students. The integration options are endless. The Glogster EDU Teacher Premium product can easily be used in Grades 2-12.  Teachers can buy a 12 month teacher subscription for up to 200 students for a discounted price in the marketplace.

Verizon Thinkfinity : Thinkfinity by the Verizon Foundation offers comprehensive teaching and learning resources created by some of the most respected organizations in each academic subject and literacy. The easy-to-navigate K-12 resources are grade-specific and aligned to the Texas TEKS.  Thinkfinity is not visible in unlicensed search in order to prevent users outside of the aligned states from accessing these items.  Learning.com has access to the complete Thinkfinity library.  Item types include PreK-12 activities, lesson plans, videos, collections, Audio, Interactives, Primary Sources, and Worksheets.  Subjects include Art, Economics, Educational Technology, Foreign Language, Geography, Health, History, Literacy, Mathematics, Professional Development, Reading & Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies.

Log in to your Learning.com account and explore these new resources in the Marketplace to discover another new way to integrate technology into your classroom.

Digital Storytelling with Matt Monjan

Digital Storytelling is an amazing way to share information and be creative. Check out the information shared by Matt Monjan from the DEN.

Open publication - Free publishing - More den

Nature Works Everywhere

Nature Works Everywhere | Presented by The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Works Everywhere site challenges us to think about what impacts nature has on our world with "Nature: It’s more than just a faraway beach or mountain. It’s a fantastic factory that makes the building blocks of all our lives – food, drinking water, the stuff we own and the air we breathe. It makes amazing memories, and even protects us from floods and storms!" Visit the Nature Works Everywhere site to find videos, lesson plans and a meet the scientists section to assist with teaching and learning about nature.

Summer Enrichment Fun

Summer is rapidly approaching and I remember the days where I worried if my students would forget what they had learned as the lazy days of Summer rolled by. I would work hard all year to compile an activity list to share with my students. Before the more prevalent access to technology existed, my students went home with a paper calendar of "things to do" over the summer to keep them thinking. Sending these ideas home now can be so much more engaging. I think of the websites used in and out of classrooms, the way that digital curriculum can be assigned out to students through their Learning.com accounts, the Discovery resources that can be used, the many ways to challenge students to explore their interests away from school and I am excited that teachers have so many resources to use to engage students over the summer. I read the latest Discovery Educator Network weekly e-newsletter and was happy to see that Martha and hence Lance have begun the process to engage students over the summer. The enrichment packet included below is geared towards 5th and 6th grade students. Use it, share it and be inspired by it. Create your own digital enrichment packet to share with your students to meet the needs of your grade level. Once it is created, remember to add it to a "journal" item in Learning.com and assign it out to your class. Help your students stay engaged over the Summer and enrich their learning experiences to prepare them for the upcoming school year.

DE Summer Enrichment Packet

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Alan November

This morning during the TxDLA2012 Conference in Dallas, Alan November was the keynote and did a follow up session. As always, he shared some great ideas and made you think. He had an "aha moment" that he shared about a research experience with a recent student. His conclusion and question to the audience made us wonder..."Are you teaching literacy?" He was referring to digital literacy and the way our students conduct searches online for information. What grabbed my attention was the thought that we expect students to conduct internet searches for information, but in most cases we don't stop and give them the knowledge and tools to do it correctly and analyze their sources properly. We teach them about "Internet Safety" using a variety of resources then we move on and expect that they know it. Do we take the next step and have them truly conduct different types of research at different levels? Do we make sure they know how to uncover the author/creator of the websites they choose? Do we help them to understand how to "read a weblink" when they see it in a search engine list? Are we watching to see if students that do the exact same search end up with the exact same results in the list or is bubble searching at play even in our schools? If you aren't familiar with "bubble searches," do a little research into how our searches become personalized without our intent.

Alan made a comment that relates to our students being illiterate in what they don't know related to technology. That really hit home with me because this resonates in all areas of the curriculum and not just with students. People asked him questions during the session that I thought seemed like common knowledge, but whose common knowledge is it? If I took one thing away from this session (I took a lot more than 1 thing for the record), it is a refreshed view of what students and teachers don't know. Remembering that we are all at different levels in what we know and don't know for that matter, is such an important key to teaching and learning.

Thanks Alan for reminding me about what I know and don't know along with what I have forgotten.

TxDLA 2012

The TxDLA Conference is right around the corner. Beginning on April 15 and running through April 18 it will be held at the Dallas Convention Center and will be filled with sessions related to distance education. This is one of my favorite conferences to attend each year. There are always great resources shared that relate to all areas of distance learning (virtual schools, blended learning, readiness, classroom suggestions and more). If you haven't registered yet, visit http://conference.txdla.org/attend/register/ to learn more and get registered.

   If you attend the conference and are interested in blended learning, find my session on Monday.