Digital Story - Real Life Math

Digital Storytelling is a great way to help motivate and inspire students create a multimedia project. This type of project appeals to all types of learners and has the potential to cross so many content areas. It is an exciting way for students to showcase their knowledge and talents.

The digital story I created, Real Life Math, identifies aspects of life that display or use mathematics. Once the pictures were gathered, I developed a script, set it to music, and posted on the web. This simple idea helps students see the ways in which math relates to their everyday lives.

Click here to see a list of Digital Storytelling resources.

Mac OS X Leopard

Attention Mac fans! Apple recently debuted it's brand new operating system, Mac OS X Leopard. It is loaded with over 300 new features including the ability to run windows on your Mac. Now every picture, document, or PDF can be seen as a tiny icon displaying a small snapshot of it so you can easily find what you are looking for. Time Machine automatically backs up everything you do on your computer. iChat also has new features which allow you to have video conversations with several people and work on projects together simultaneously. There are also new parental controls and the ability to create stacks to help keep your desktop organized when working on several different programs at once. With the abundance of great new features Mac OS X Leopard is sure to be a hit!

Space Colony Web Quest

Web Quests present unique opportunities to provide students with a technology-rich learning experience that stimulates higher level thinking skills and promotes the collaborative exploration of a particular topic. Developing a successful Web Quest requires a great deal of time and energy to ensure that it is developmentally appropriate and possible for students to execute.

This collaborative effort to create a Space Colony Web Quest was a great experience. There are so many different areas that need to be addressed when developing a Web Quest. Finding resources, creating student roles and activities, and providing the necessary information for teachers interested in utilizing this project for their students takes a great deal of time and hard work.

Click here to find links to information about WebQuests

Creating a Website

Creating your own website is an incredible journey. There are so many options and so many resources at your disposal, the most difficult part for me was choosing how to display my content. Since this was a project for my graduate class, Using the Internet in Education, the deadline was the only thing looming over my head forcing me to make design choices. Truth be told it was fun, the most rewarding project I have had to date and one that is practical and helpful in my daily life as a technology teacher. I was so excited about the possibilities I decided halfway through the project to scrap my site and try to teach myself html. Although I made some headway and taught myself quite a bit, it wasn't the most logical idea I've ever had.

www.techteachingtools.com

Check it out & let me know what you think. I appreciate all feedback!

Sarfall.com

This is an excellent site for beginning and emergent readers. It features many short stories and activities to help students learn to read. Students have the option of having every letter, picture, and/or word read to them. One of the great features is that the site uses a child's voice to show them how to practice sounding out each letter, word, and phrase. It is an amazing resource for young students!

PEW - Internet & American Life Project

According to the Pew Internet Project survey "87% of all youth between the ages of 12 and 17 use the internet." and "78% (of those teens) say they use the internet at school." That means that 22% of teens do not use the internet on a regular basis at school. This is an injustice to those students as they are missing out on a wealth of opportunities to learn. As digital natives the students in today's classrooms are quite different from those of past generations and they need to be treated as such. They live in a media rich world where they are constantly connected and have the ability to access information on any topic at their fingertips. As educators we need to embrace this reality and use the internet more in our classrooms to bring learning to life and teach them they skills they need to survive in our technology-driven society.

Teacher Tube - Pay Attention

This video highlights the technology defecet facing the digital learner in traditional classrooms and challenges educators to reflect and create a more stimulating and positive learning experience for all students. It is filled with thought provoking statistics as well as ways to use technology to maximize productivity in the classroom.