SLAV Connects is a blog by the School Libraries Association of Victoria (SLAV), formerly named Bright Ideas when a collaboration between SLAV and the State Library of Victoria (SLV). Its aim is to share news from the Association and to encourage teacher librarians, librarians, school library staff, educators and all interested persons to actively engage with the school libraries, to share tools and experiences; to network on a global scale; and to embrace dynamic teaching and learning opportunities.
Jerry Blumengarten (also known online as Cybraryman1) is an educator with over 30 years experience. What began as a Middle School library page has developed into a site with lots of resources including a list of blogs and nings that address the future of education.
An extremely useful site for maths teachers and students, the Year 7 Maths Wiki has a wealth of information on problem solving, homework help and interactive activities. The wiki was developed by the fabulous Maryna Badenhor (@marynabadenhors).
There is an incredible amount of teacher resources here and they are not all US based. There are many online resources for those of us outside the USA to use. Organised by level:
Pre K,
K-2,
3-5,
6-8,
9-12
and then by the subjects
The Arts,
Health and Fitness,
Maths,
Reading and Language Arts,
Science and Technology
Social Studies.
There are classroom resources, discussions and information on forthcoming and recent professional development.
The site is attractive and well organised and there is sure to be something to suit just about everyone. Featured initiatives such as ‘Raising readers’ that links to stories and reading activities and the PBS video portal that collects shows broadcast on PBS (these ARE available to people outside the US, unlike the BBC iPlayer) are other useful aspects of the site.
The BBC have numerous websites that are useful for teachers and students. Their Bitesize collection focuses on Key Stage 1 (Prep, years 1 and 2) – numeracy and literacy, with Science games and quizzes, Key Stage 2 (years 3, 4, 5 and 6) – English, Maths and Science and Key Stage 3 (years 7, 8 and 9) – English, Maths and Science. The sites include games for students and lesson plans and worksheets for teachers.
KS2 Bitesize includes resources for:
Spelling
Microorganisms
Grids
Fractions
Changing state
Argument
Probability
Light and dark
Planning
KS3 Bitesize includes resources for:
Reading, writing, speaking and listening
Shakespeare scenes and play summaries
Number, algebra, handling data, measures, shapes and space
Living things, energy and forces, chemicals, Earth and space.
Classroom Web Tools is a nicely organised resource site for teachers wanting to identify Web 2.0 tools for a specific school subject.
Homepage
Although not an exhaustive list, there may be several resources listed that are new to you or your colleagues. A good starting point or a handy site to use to add to your collection of strategies.
Victorian (Loddon Mallee Region) Ultranet Teaching and Learning Coach Maryna Badenhorst has written a useful blog post on virtual excursions (or virtual field trips).
If for whatever reason, classes are unable to leave the school, Maryna has developed some engaging tasks for students to complete. As Maryna says, “A virtual field trip ‘takes students on a tour of a location using a series of web sites that have been linked together, creating a guided experience.”
Ideal for remote or regional schools, as well as those who find it difficult to get away from school for a whole day.
Primary Games Arena – School Curriculum Games bills itself as “The largest collection of curriculum games in the universe.” Games are arranged by subjects, year and game types.
Homepage
All games are curriculum-based and are fun and easy to play. Worth a look.
Google reported this week that the number of students using its Google Apps for Education Edition productivity and collaboration tools on campus has just about quadrupled over this time last year.
According to a blog entry posted this week by Miriam Schneider and Jason Cook of the Google Apps Education Edition team, more than 5 million K-12 and higher education students are actively using Google Apps on campus. They said the number has increased by 400 percent since the beginning of the fall semester in 2008. The number represents “thousands of schools in more than 145 countries,” according to the blog post.
To commemorate the milestone, Google has launched a new site that provides information, resources, and video and text case studies on higher education campuses and K-12 schools, districts, and collectives that have adopted Apps for Education. (Case studies range from Northwestern University, Arizona State University, and University of Southern California to New York City Intermediate School 339, Maine Township High School District, and Prince George County Public Schools.)
As a Google Certified Educator I am often asked by innovative educators how they can get started using Google Apps. As many teachers know, Google Apps Education Edition is a free suite of hosted communication & collaboration applications designed for schools and universities. (See the top 10 reasons to switch your school to Google Apps.)
Though I know Google is a valuable tool, when faced with this question, I first ask, “Why Google Apps?” This is important to consider as the goals and objectives must come before the tool. Here is a recent response I received to that question:
“We’re looking for a school web site that is enhanced by the tools that Google seems to offer.As a school, we’d like to be able to communicate with students and parents about assignment deadlines and events, on a general school-wide level as well as for individual classes. We’d like email accounts for students and teachers, calendars, class web pages. We are also interested in using Google docs as a means of encouraging collaboration among students during group projects, lab activities, etc. I think there are a lot of applications to our school.
We are on paid site right now, but I have heard a lot of good things about Google Apps for Education. It seems more user-friendly/intuitive since Google is something the kids (and staff) are used to working with. Not to mention that it’s free.”
This school seems to have some great reasons for using Google Apps. Now that the stage is set, here is how I recommend getting started.
GET READY
Read the Quick Start Guide The Education Edition is engineered to help schools organize the wealth of knowledge that lives inside schools. This guide will assist a full-scale deployment of Google Apps.
View Tutorials & Tips
View videos and tutorials on how you can use Google Apps at your school and in the classroom.
Sign Up for Free Email with Message Security in Google Apps Education Edition for K-12s
Keep your students safe with Google Message Security, offered free to current and new K12 Google Apps schools that sign up before July of 2010. Customizable inbound and outbound filtering based on content or senders – you make the rules.
Set Up Sites for Teachers
Check out the new Sites for Teachers page to see how teachers, students and administrators are using Google Sites to create their class sites, organize school trips, and run school projects.
Help Students Search Effectively Educators often say that they could use some help to teach better web search skills in the classroom and make sure Google is used well and to its full potential. Google Certified Teachers have develop a set of nine modular and practical lessons to help educators do just that.
Take a look at Classroom Activities and Tips Posters
Be sure to check out some examples of teacher work in the new classroom activities section and check out the handy tips posters, which you can print out and hang in your classrooms, computer labs and libraries.
GET SET
Once you’ve done your homework, it’s time to start connecting with others doing the same work. These will be your best resources to becoming successful using Google Apps for Educators. Here is how you do this.
Get on themap
Find other Google Apps educators & students around the world. When you visit the Mapyou will find schools, along with their url, that are using Google. Figure out the key people at that school. Connect and visit…
Become a Part of the Google Teacher Community Here you will find the Google for Educators Discussion Groupdesigned to keep you updated on Google’s K-12 Education initiatives. The group has become the home of a vibrant community of educators. In this space educators start discussions with fellow teachers; share ideas about innovation in education; ask questions about where to find teaching resources; tell colleagues about curricula you’ve created that have worked really well and more. You will also find examples of classroom activities using Google products.
GO! You are now ready to begin using Google Apps at your school. You will want to introduce this to your colleagues through a meeting or email. When doing this be sure to include your school goals and objects around why you are doing this. Have some simple ways they can get started now. Share some ways you plan to measure success.
Celebrate Your Success and Get on The Map Once you launch this work in your school, add yourself to the Google Community Map publicly with your colleagues. Share your success by commenting here. Invite others to your school (physically or virtually) to see the great work you are doing.
Lots of things to investigate here. Whatever you think of Google, you have to admit that they have a great suite of tools.
The Mrs Pancake website is a site jam packed full of resources for teachers, (particularly Primary teachers).
Homepage
There are things to make and do, signs, Literacy and Numeracy resources and much more. Handy for Book Week is the Jungle, that could be adapted for whatever you are doing with the Book Safari theme:
Jungle
Mrs Pancake is updated weekly, so it’s worth visiting often to see what’s new.
EduHound is a free US-based site that caters for K-12 teachers. Teaching resources are organised by topic and many topics are applicable to Australian curriculum. Topics include:
