Week 18

Here are some highlights from Technology this week:

Week 18 (January 9 – 12, 2018)

Thursday Giggles:            Where do snowmen keep their money?
                                          In a snow bank.

Pick and choose your favorites.  Don’t use every tool. 
Chefs don’t use every ingredient.  Gardeners don’t plant every type of plant.

OPTIONAL Professional Development for January:

Click to enlarge image.

January 24 Eventbrite sign-up HERE.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Are you looking for video content to share with your children about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr?  Kid President has a lovely video.  LINK HERE.

Web Animation.  Did you know that you can explore online web animation using Google Slides?  Yes.  You can.  Email me if you would like the lesson plans.  Check out this LINK.  That was done in Google Slides.  For ISTE standards, the children are exploring the role of imaginative creator and they are utilizing digital tools to make it happen.  They are faced with problem/solution-oriented thinking: how, what next, then what?  Wanna shift the narrative?  Ancient Egypt?  Character traits?  School rules?  Grammar and writing strategies?  Creative writing opener?  Dialogue?  Possibilities are endless.  My fourth grader made this one (the link back there).  Email me if you want the lesson plans (melissaculver@cusd.com)

Lab Time.  Two strategies for making your lab experience run smoothly: When I took my second graders into the lab I had one mom come in and help each time.  She learned the scope of the lesson while she was in there and would help troubleshoot for kids who needed help.  It was nice to have two adults answer all those questions.  The other strategy was this: I would frontload and pre-teach the lesson to three students (days in advance).  Those students would then wander about and help their peers who were struggling.  I didn’t always have time for the second strategy.  But, I found both strategies to be quite helpful.

Global Oneness Project.  Are you looking for more video content options?  Safe for kids?  Relevant?  See if any of the videos on Global Oneness Project will work for you.  Stimulate conversations about fact v. opinion.  Extract a theme.  Locate the author’s unspoken message through video transitions and facial expressions.  Develop an outline.  Expand the content.  If you were the author of the next video in this series, what would you focus on?  Social Studies.  Geography.  Science.  Math.  Explore the possibilities.  And, lesson plans are already there on the site!  Check out the Lesson Plans tab.

Slides Carnival.  Are your Google Slides presentations looking a bit outdated and boring?  Would you like to spice them up a bit?  For free?  Try Slides Carnival.  They have several ready-to-go templates that you can access and copy.

Clever App.  Clever has an app.  Children can access tools via Clever using an iPad.  For example, the Benchmark books are available online.  Children can listen to these texts or read them from the Clever Apps page.  Not every tool in Clever is iPad compatible.  But, Benchmark is one tool that is.  More on this in a future post.

Kindly,