Cougar Connections Fayetteville Intermediate School August 2009 Volume 1, Issue
Special Interest Articles: • New ideas for Google Earth • ELMO document cameras • Do you dig Diigo? • Professional development *Wordle* Aug 6 @ 2:45 pm • Techie Tip
440 Hood Ave. Fayetteville, GA 30214 Phone: 770-460-3555
Google Earth in the classroom Google earth is a free, downloadable application that combines satellite imagery, maps, and 3-D terrain and buildings to create a highly realistic virtual globe. Social Studies: Explore our neighborhood. Students can create a tour of their neighborhood with annotated place markers indicating the location for their school and other points of interest such as the police station, courthouse, fire station, and local library.
Reading: Take a Google Lit Trip by tracking the journeys of a book character. Students can mark locations along the story’s route finding out about background information or view links to images, videos, or biographies of real persons.
For more ideas visit: http://www.google.com/educators/geo.html http://www.google.com/outreach/index.html http://www.sallyridescience.com/google_earth _sky
Ready for ELMO Introducing your new friend, the ELMO! This year our media center will have five ELMO document cameras available for check out to use for instruction. Why would you want an ELMO? This product is a must have in the classroom. Here are some ways the ELMOs can assist with student learning: 1. Modeling a hands-on science experiment step b step 2. Art projects 3. Going over a practice test whole group 4. Demonstrate math
manipulatives 5. Modeling the writing process step by step 6. Displaying graphs and charts 7. Display examples of student work. These are just some great ideas for the ELMO. Check one out today to see the possibilities for yourself!
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Do YOU dig Diigo? Techie Tip: Creating a Secure Password • The longer the better- use at least 8-9 characters • Include a mixture of letters, numbers, and symbols • Create a different password for each account you use • Use a schema to jog your memory • Example: AeU02dawg$ (Initials, grad year, mascot, extra character)
RememberIf you write down your passwords…be smart! 9 Hide securely 9 Write down only relevant bits, not the complete password
It’s frustrating not being able to find a website or forgetting a URL. Also, you could spend a lot of valuable time researching websites for a lesson and bookmark them but your list is stuck on that computer. By using a FREE social bookmarking site, you will always be able to access your bookmarks on any computer.
site. You can add as many tags as you would like for each site. For example a site about multiplication might be tagged with multiplication, facts, math, and Unit 5.
The best part about diigo is that it is “social.” You can add people or friends to build your network. BY having a network you can see other sites your To begin you will need to register friends have tagged and share with them your tags. at http://www.diigo.com/. Once you get to your dashboard you will Let’s say you need some great sites for teaching about Eleanor Roosevelt. need to click the "Install Diigo Other teachers might like to use the Toolbar" button. When you same websites too. Instead of trying to find a website you would like to each gather a list of sites and printing bookmark your diigo toolbar will them out or emailing them, have the be ready! teachers add you to their network. Look for our media center’s diigo Once you hit bookmark on your account to discover some great websites diigo toolbar you can type any we have tagged and are excited to share notes about the website or write in with you! tags that you associate with the
What’s in a word? Join us for an exciting look at a innovative way to get students interested in learning again! Wordle is a toy used for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. Wed. Aug. 6 @ 2:45 – 3:45 pm Although the class is optional, it will be extremely helpful to learn the ins and outs of this new technology. We will provide Job
aids for you to take back to the classroom. Enjoy hands-on learning with your technology staff. All present will also receive a list of activities and ideas for using Wordle in your classroom! The media technology team will be available for your questions and comments anytime. Snacks will also be provided! Come to the class for a lesson that is just when you need it most!