Virtual Field Trips online

With today's economy, there are lots of cuts in school budgets.  Sometimes, this means no field trips for classes. Today's post is focusing on virtual field trips.  I recommend you consider virtual field trips for several reasons.  First, many virtual field trips are FREE.  Of course, we all love free! Second, there are many places to "take" your students when you consider virtual field trips...the possibilities are endless! If you limit your class to somewhere you can travel to on a bus, they are missing out!

Recently, I ran across this website with a great list of virtual field trips. Virtual field trips can be used with your class to learn more about places without leaving your school.  It is great to use virtual field trips because many are free and you can access locations anywhere in the world right from the computer in your classroom! Bring it to you if you can't take your students there!

Here are some other pages that list virtual field trips. 
Greene Bytes
Simple K12 Virtual Field Trips
Blackwell's Best Virtual Field Trips
The Apple's List of Top 5 Virtual Field Trips
Utah Education Network's Virtual Field Trips
Internet4Classrooms Virtual Field Trips Help
Tech Trekers Virtual Field Trips
Virtual Field Trips List
OOPS! Virtual Field Trips

Ask your parents if they have any place they could share about and then find a virtual field trip about that place.  This would be a great way to get parents involved with your class!

A virtual field trip is the next best thing to being there! Open up the window to the world right from your classroom and introduce your students to endless possibilities!
Take some time and check out the links in this article...your students will LOVE you for it!!!

If you have used virtual field trips with your class, please share the location and link of the site you have visited in the comments section on this post. If you have other sites you use, please share those as well so we can learn from each other.

iPods in the Classroom

Our school has a new iPod Touch cart for classes to use this year.  After setting the iPods up and putting apps in folders to help make it easier for students (PK-6th) to use, I rolled them out and used them with a 3rd grade class last week. It was a very exciting day...not only for our students, but for me. I really had a geek moment when they were ready for use!
Many of our teachers have attended Project Zero at Harvard. One technique they learned there is for students to create a "Headline" about various topics they are studying in class.  So, with that in mind, I came up with the first lesson. We are an all boys' school, so this lesson went right along with boys! The boys used the Create a Martian app to design the martians that were taking over the earth. They had 3 minutes to make their martian perfect! Once everyone had a martian, we took a snapshot of it by holding down the power button and the home button of the iPod, which basically takes a screen shot of the iPod screen. Then, the boys went to the Photos app and found their picture. They emailed it to their teacher (I have all teachers set up in the contacts app). The teacher printed it from her laptop to a color printer and the boys then created a headline about martians taking over the earth.
Not a bad lesson for their first introduction to the iPods. They boys worked great and really loved the chance to be creative with the martian and headline.
One thing I thought was really interesting is that with the first 7 classes I have used the iPods with, only one or two from each class had NEVER used an iPod or iPhone.  WOW!  

Twitter and @cybraryman1

Hopefully if you are an educator, you are using Twitter to connect with other people as part of your PLN (Personal Learning Network or some may call it Professional Learning Network.) It took me about six months to really “get” Twitter. If you asked me to tell you one thing I couldn’t do without as a Technology Coach, I believe the first thing out of my mouth would be Twitter.  Take some time to follow people and watch your learning grow! I few things I use Twitter for at my job are to help me solve problems with applications, get suggestions on tools to use with students, and find websites to give to teachers to use with their lessons. It really is invaluable once you begin to use it more and more.

Throughout the week, there are various educational chats happening using twitter. These can be very beneficial for educators to participate in to help hear others’ points of view and give you a chance to voice your opinion on various topics.

@cybraryman1 on twitter has created a list of all the current educational chats and when they take place on his site. I encourage you to look through the list and see what topics relate to you (for example, kinderchat for kindergarten teachers, scichat for science teachers, etc.) Find the day of the week and time that these chats are taking place and try to participate in at least one to see what it is like to learn and hear from others at a very fast pace. Many of the chats are also available for you to view at a later time in case you miss them or can’t make it. You can read through the tweets that are sent out during that chat. This is a huge benefit of Twitter-connecing people from all over the world to share thoughts, lessons, ideas, and more to help better educate our students.

While you are at @cybraryman1’s site, check it out! Block off a planning time or evening to see what he has available for educators.  I am VERY impressed with his site and think you will be also.  On the Educator’s link, he has links for teacher tools, classroom organization, and subject areas.  Each page has a TON of links to help you enhance your teaching. Just a warning, once you visit his site, you may not want to stop looking at all the great resources there!

Sign Up Sheets Made Easy

This site, Sign Up Sheet Genius, is a great time saver for teachers, coaches, room parents, and anyone else that needs a place for people to sign up for something. Save the paper sign up sheets and create one online. Oh yeah, did I mention it's FREE? Basically, SignUpGenius is a FREE online tool for creating and managing group sign up lists. They have examples for you to view to get ideas of how to use it in your classroom. Some ideas they list are meal signups for a sick friend, snack signups for a class party, party RSVP, but get creative and think of other ways you can use it in your classroom. How about a signup for a monthly parent reader to come to your class, a signup for parents to send in treasure box prizes, a signup for parent volunteers in your classroom, the possibilities are endless! If you have used it in your classroom or think of a great way to use it, please post a comment to share with other teachers reading this blog.
Click learn more on their site to get full details. Here are the basics: Create a free account, create an online signup, make sign up public or private, people sign up, email reminders can be sent, and you can be notified when someone signs up. 
Pretty cool and sounds like a time saver for teachers...we all need that, right?

ABCya! Website

 If you are an elementary teacher and haven't checked out ABCya! Go there now! :)
ABCya! is a site with educational games and activities for elementary students. All their activities were created or approved by certified teachers. The games are FREE and some would be great for use with a SmartBoard.
Trust me, this site is worth checking out! Just make sure you have some time because there is so much there! Your students will LOVE it! It would also be a great site to share with parents to use for reinforcement for their children while at home.

CAPTURED! Photo of the Day for Students/Classes

I've always seen people who do the photo a day for an entire year, and I always think, what a great project. Well, I doubt I'm the first to try it with classes, but I created a Flicker Group for Students/Classes Photo of the Day just for the school year (really only days students are in school.) It would be great to have as many classes participate as possible. Please consider joining. :)
I hope to present this idea to my teachers like this: 1.  Rotate students choosing what to take a picture of, taking the picture, and sharing about it (maybe the caption-just a simple sentence).
It would be great to have classes around the world join this group so we can learn more about each other just simply by sharing pictures!!! It also is for all grade levels.
So, as you start back to school, let your students start clicking and post those pictures to our group!!!  It will be GREAT!
Please note: A WIKI will soon be posted for this project for classes that participate to share their info.

SmartBoard Resources

I am leading a session for our faculty during inservice week at PDS on getting the most out of your SmartBoard. Below are places that you can use to get resources for your SmartBoard.

Smart Exchange-find lesson plans for your SmartBoard and connect with teachers

TONS of sites and links for the SmartBoard
SmartBoard in Education Wiki 
SmartBoard Lesson Sites
Teachers LOVE SmartBoards blog

Places for Notebook resources:
Tangipahoa Parish Schools
Math 
Greenwich Schools SmartBoard Lessons by Grade
SmartBoard Lesson Plans
MATH SmartBoard Resources
Rolla Public Schools SmartBoard Lessons
Elementary Smartboard Lessons
Rockingham County Public Schools (sorted by grade level, subject, standard, then click smartboard)
Center School District Templates by grade level

Games for Smartboard:
Jeopardy and Millionaire Games

Interactive Sites for the SmartBoard
Kerrville Technology
Primary Language Arts Interactive Sites
Primary Math Interactive Sites
Science Interactive Sites
Social Studies Interactive Sites
Art, Music, Holidays
Utah Education Network Interactives
More Interactive Sites
Online Storybook Sites
Mr. Wolfe's Math Lessons (by grade level at top of page)