The student’s in Mrs. Reichel’s grade 1 class in Ellen Briggs School in my district connected with Penguin experts to discuss what they have learned about Penguins. The students had a number of great questions. The event was a great experience for all. See the posting below from Mrs. Reichel’s blog.   Re-Posted from...
Read More »

We all know the typical method of timeline creation in schools. “Draw a line, add some dates and document events in chronological order”.  Students will typically use poster boards, markers and possibly cut out images. The students in Mr. Papa’s grade 8 social studies class in our district are putting a new spin on...
Read More »

Tween Tribune and Teen Tribune are bringing the worlds news and events to the classroom.  Every day they post the most compelling, relevant and interesting news for teens and tweens.  The stories are selected by teens and tweens working closely with professional journalists. Students are provided with the opportunity to comment on these stories....
Read More »

The Technology Enhanced Learning in Science Foundation (TELS) is a funded consortium of seven universities, a non profit educational organization and several public schools around the country.  They have released a web-based tool for science instruction called WISE (Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment. Here is a snippet directly from their site: “WISE is a free...
Read More »

I recently worked with a grade 4 class in one of my elementary schools. Mrs. McLeod and her students were very interested in sea turtles. Her students were conducting research on the various types of turtles. Mrs. McLeod attended a workshop that I presented on video conferencing in the classroom. Upon completion of this...
Read More »

I have written about the Khan Academy many times in my blog postings. It is a tremendous resource and  one that I believe can greatly impact student achievement.  The “flip the classroom” model of instruction involves having students review teacher or student made tutorials at home for homework. They then work on applying problems...
Read More »

What do you do when workbooks, handouts, and class problem sets are not connecting with your students? What do you do for those students who have a solid understanding of a topic before you begin the lesson? How are you differentiating for them? Can you address the needs of your advanced students as well...
Read More »

There is a new phenomenon occurring in classrooms, workshops and meetings. It is called back channeling. This refers to participants in a event communicating and collaborating with technology to take notes, ask questions and reflect in real-time. A great tool to accomplish this is the website Today’s Meet. In order to get started you...
Read More »

Google has developed a powerful new search feature that students and teachers will benefit from. You now have the ability to search by reading level. Google classifies search results by basic, intermediate and advanced reading level. You can choose to only view one of the levels in your result or view all of them...
Read More »

I recently came across the PhET website project that was developed by the University of Colorado. I have found it to be a really great resource for all grade levels. Here is a description of the site taken directly from their about page: PhET provides fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena for free....
Read More »