Nov. 25, 2013 Volume 2, Issue 7 Meet the Authors
Danielle Uglik Special Eduction Teacher Clay-Battelle High School, Monongalia County Schools
Vanessa Clay Adult Basic Education/SPOKES Instructor, Pocahontas County, RESA 1 & 4
Catch-up on Technology over Fall Break (and in your PJs!!) Watch a pre-recorded webinar: bit.ly/webinarlinks Catch up on useful Twitter feeds – use #edtech or #wvtis Learn a new program to incorporate in your classroom: http://wvde.state.wv.us/technology/tutorials/ Find lesson plans that use tech integration: Thinkfinity.org
edWeb.net
Terrica Rumer Computer Science Teacher Petersburg High School, Grant County Schools
edWeb.net is a free professional social and learning network designed for individuals interested in education. EdWeb is a location for educators to gain and share information about cutting edge technology, instructional strategies, and behavior modification (and any other related topic). This resource focuses on professional collaboration through online professional learning communities and providing professional development. Members can participate in 1,000’s of free, live as well as archived webinars and join learning communities based on areas of interest. Members can exchange ideas and strategies with teachers, parents, administrators, post-secondary professors, and other educational professionals.
Upcoming webinars: November 25, 2013 from 2:00-3:00pm: Adaptive Learning Technology: Who is Using it, Why, and How It’s Working November 26, 2013 from 3:00-4:00pm: Media Manager, Mediator and Mentor: Key Roles for Educators in the Multi-Screen, Multi-Touch Digital World.
It’s again the time of year to start creating snow packets. Snow packets give students a chance to not fall behind in their work and review skills already learned. Traditionally they take the form of worksheets. For students with the ability to access the internet at home a “Technology Option” could be given too to help keep students engaged and learning on those days. Ask students to watch short videos about a topic and then take a quiz or contribute to a class discussion. Several sites already make this easy, with pre-made content or the ability to modify or create your own. Some possibilities: Ed.Ted.com - Short videos, short quizzes and a lot of learning! Khan Academy.org – Be a “coach” and recommend a series of videos and exercises for students. Edmodo.com – One idea: link to a video and then ask students to add to a class discussion. Educreations.com – An easy-to-use app that allows teachers to create their own lessons & then post them online. Free pre-made lessons also available. BrainPop.com – Videos,SchoolTube.com games and fun! – A K-12 based alternative to YouTube. WatchKnowLearn.org – Free, organized educational videos Sumdog.com – Free educational games for Math & Reading.
“In West Virginia alone, students failed more than 25,000 courses in 2008-09 (WVDE)”. OnTargetWV Credit Recovery is a West Virginia Department of Education initiative to reduce drop-out and increase graduation rates in West Virginia high schools. Facilitated by WV Virtual School, OnTargetWV provides an opportunity for students to recover credits failed during the school year. OnTargetWV can also be utilized as original credit for students with disabilities under guidance of a highly qualified special education teacher. Students are able to earn credits toward graduation. This program is available to students statewide at the cost of $75 per course, ½ credit. OnTargetWV is different from Credit Recovery’s Odyssey Program as it offers more supports and scaffolding through the highly qualified special education teacher than the one-way learning of Odyssey. OnTargetWV courses provide differentiated instruction as well as an online instructor and building level facilitator to provide supplemental materials to promote student learning. Both the instructor and facilitator work closely with the student to answer questions and provide one-on-one instruction to support success. Courses include the content areas of English, math, science, and social studies, health, physical education, and world languages. Wanting more information? Contact Gloria Burdette: gkburdet@access.k12.wv.us Course listings: bit.ly/ontargetwv
Students in WV are provided with the opportunity to take courses through the West Virginia Virtual School (WVVS). Courses through the WVVS are offered for many reasons including to increase course offerings in local schools. Students taking courses will be provided a mentor to work in conjunction with the student’s online instructor to monitor student progress and provide support. Courses can be taken during the school day or outside the normal school hours. Each school has a virtual school contact responsible for the registration process for virtual courses. Some counties have policies regulating participation. Courses through the WVVS are only meant to supplement a student’s curriculum. Students cannot earn a diploma from the WVVS. Courses are funded through state and local district funds. If a district enrolls more than 10 students in a course, the district will be responsible for a fee of $200 per student. The WVVS course catalog and other information can be found on the WV Department of Education site. Wanting more information: Contact Becky Butler: rbutler@access.k12.wv.us Course Catalog: bit.ly/VirtualSchool
ClassDojo is a free behavior management system that provides instant feedback to students and generates realtime results with the simple click of a mouse. This program immediately reinforces good behavior while improving student engagement. ClassDojo generates data and reports that can be shared with students, teachers, administrators, or parents in just minutes. Whole class or individual student behavior reports contain a specific breakdown of behaviors based on percentages. Reports can be selected for a specific day, week, month, or even year of data. ClassDojo also has a TrendSpotter which can identify during what parts of a school day or day of the week the class exhibits the highest levels of positive or negative behaviors. Users may sign up at www.classdojo.com, and can create groups of students based on class rosters and assign avatars to each student. Then, the class can select positive behaviors--helping others, on-task, participating, working hard--and negative behaviors--bullying, disrespect, no homework, talking out of turn--on which to focus. Users have the option of customizing and adding their own positive or negative behaviors to meet the behavior needs of each class. Students and parents have the option of signing up for ClassDojo to view data reports as well. For more information: www.classdojo.com/about Teacher resources: www.classdojo.com/share/
Do your students do “research” on websites riddled with in-your-face ads? Do they know the difference between a .info and a .edu domain category? Do they know how to “sniff-out” bias online? In the 21st Century, information is everywhere. Today students must know not just how to find information, but how to validate and determine reliability of information. This is often referred to as Information Literacy. But how do you teach these skills? One idea is to adapt the teaching concept of a “think aloud” onto websites. Using a website validation checklist (Here’s a good one: bit.ly/17rcPVt), students visit several websites about a single topic. As they do so, they utilize screen capture and annotation software (such as Jing: http://www.techsmith.com/jing), to take screenshots and break down the components, ask questions, and explain their thinking in writing. These screenshots would then be placed in a slideshow. An example: bit.ly/ThinkingAloud More Ideas: www.schrockguide.net/critical-evaluation.html
WV Info Depot The WV Library Commission provides a database for magazines, journals, newspapers, and encyclopedias. The databases can be found at the website wvinfodepot.org. This site is a great reference tool for schools that is purchased by the WV Library Commission.
Some of the databases available: MasterFILE Premier Newspaper Source
TOPICsearch Business Source Elite
Alt HealthWatch
Health Source Consumer Edition
Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia
Primary Search
Library,Information Science & Technology Abstracts Senior High Core Collection (H.W. Wilson)
Audiobook Collection (EBSCOhost) Public Library Core Collection: Nonfiction (H.W. Wilson)
GreenFILE Regional Business News Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition Children's Core Collection (H.W. Wilson). Middle and Junior High Core Collection (H.W. Wilson) Fiction Core Collection (H.W. Wilson)
Other resources: a job and career accelerator application Novelist Plus K-8 Kids Search
consumer health complete
Novelist Plus
Newspaper archives
Points of View
It is available to all students and teachers in West Virginia. You can obtain the password by requesting a WVInfoDepot bookmark from your local library. Susan Hayden from the West Virginia Library Commission will provide training sessions for one or all databases. Her trainings last from 1-4 hours and can be tailored to include specific topics if requested. If you require a custom training, please contact Susan early to give her ample opportunity to prepare.
For more information: Contact Susan Hayden Adult Service Coordinator West Virginia Library Commission susan.g.hayden@wv.gov (304) 558-3978 ext. 2015.
www.readwritethink.org/ http://bit.ly/1fCXneh
1.usa.gov/1bVtIdV bit.ly/1j61BLr nlvm.usu.edu/
bit.ly/HZuI74 Icivics.org Photo by Jeff Peterson via Flickr.com; CC BY 2.0
bit.ly/sciencelinks1 bit.ly/1fCXHK5 Wonderopolis.org (also an iPad app) www.exploratorium.edu/
www.ribbonhero.com lessonplans.btskinner.com/lessons.html
www.educationworld.com/vocational/index www.eduscapes.com/tap/tapapplied
www.pecentral.org/ www.iphys-ed.com/technology-in-pe.html
bit.ly/k12resourcesformusic bit.ly/artsedgeKC
www.eduweb.com/insideart/ www.artsconnected.org/toolkit
bit.ly/Ace_an_Interview www.englishformyjob.com/
Photo by Erin Lodes via Flickr.com; CC BY 2.0